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PIOZZIANA 



OR, 

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE LATE 
MRS. PIOZZI, 

WITH REMARKS. 



A FRIEND. 

Perception quick, and luxury of thought. 
* # * * 

And spirits rig-lit to every joy in tune, 

And Friendship, ardent as a summer's noon, 

And conscious Honour's keen, instinctive sense, 

And smiles unforced, and easy confidence, 

And vivid Fancy. 

Mrs. Barbauld. 



LONDON: 
EDWARD MOXON, DOVER STREET. 

1833. 




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PIOZZIANA. 



I have now lived long, and though I have suffered 
somewhat, I have enjoyed much of what constitutes 
the pleasure of existence : but among the " changes 
and chances " which have fallen to my share, I cannot 
remember anything which proved a higher source of 
indulgence to me than my intimacy with the late 
Mrs, Piozzi. 

My object in writing the following recollections of 
her is, to afford myself the gratification of recording 
all I can, of scenes and circumstances of a most agree- 
able kind; not without a hope of contributing, in 
some degree, to the amusement of others, who may 
be at the trouble to peruse my memoranda. 

I pen these without confining my undertaking to 
any very methodical plan, and prescribe to myself 

B 



PIOZZIANA. 



scarcely any other limits than those of truth. But 
before I proceed to my chief subject, I crave permis- 
sion of my reader to offer an observation in defence of 
what is properly termed, but very improperly con- 
demned as such, — egotism. Egotism it needs must 
be in a writer who uses the personal pronoun I ; yet 
surely nothing more enhances the value of any narra- 
tive, than that same consequential pronoun. But a 
man who says "I did," " I saw," and "I heard," is 
not, on that account, to be stigmatized as an egotist. 
He must write or speak thus, in the spirit of vain- 
glory, and self-approval, before the odium of cox- 
combry can justly attach to him; and even then, his 
statements are secure of being much more highly 
relished than if he had told his tale, like Julius Csesar, 
or Lord Clarendon, in the third person singular. My 
heedless style of writing will probably not be found 
palatable ; but what may be thought of it, is to me 
a matter of indifference : should my book prove wel- 
come to the public, the public will be satisfied and so 
shall I ; and not aiming at literary reputation, I am 
regardless of the censure which may be passed by 
critics on my performance. 



PIOZZIANA. 



Some apology may be considered requisite on 
another point; I mean for the apparent partiality, and 
occasionally an approach to compliment, discoverable 
in the letters of Mrs. Piozzi, addressed to myself and 
my family, from which I shall transcribe such portions 
as seem suited to my purpose. Mrs. Piozzi's nature 
was one of kindness ; she derived pleasure from en- 
deavouring to please ; and if she perceived a mode- 
rately good quality in another, she generously mag- 
nified it into an excellence ; while she appeared blind 
to faults and foibles, which could not have escaped the 
scrutiny of one possessing only half her penetration. 
But, as I have said, her disposition was kindly. It 
was so ; and to such an extent, that during several 
years of familiar acquaintance with her, although I 
can recall many instances, I might say, hundreds, of 
her having spoken of the characters of others, I never 
heard one word of vituperation from her lips of any 
person who was the subject of discussion, except once 
when Baretti's name was mentioned. Of him she 
said that he was a bad man ; but on my hinting a wish 
for particulars, after so heavy a charge, she seemed 
unwilling to explain herself, and spoke of him no 

b2 



4 PIOZZIANA. 

more. I may offer, as a further evidence of her 
natural suavity, and of her freedom from those weak- 
nesses, to which so many of both sexes are liable, the 
following anecdote. 

She, one evening, asked me abruptly if I did not 
remember the scurrilous lines in which she had been 
depicted by Gifford in his " Baviad and Moeviad." 
And, not waiting for my answer, for I was indeed too 
much embarrassed to give one quickly, she recited the 
verses in question, and added, " how do you think 
' Thrale's gray widow ' revenged herself? I con- 
trived to get myself invited to meet him at supper at 
a friend's house, (I think she said in Pall Mall), soon 
after the publication of his poem, sat opposite to him, 
saw that he was c perplexed in the extreme ; ' and 
smiling, proposed a glass of wine as a libation to our 
future good fellowship. Gifford was sufficiently a man 
of the world to understand me, and nothing could be 
more courteous and entertaining than he was while 
we remained together." This, it must be allowed, 
was a fine trait of character, evincing thorough know- 
ledge of life, and a very powerful mind. 

Mrs. Piozzi can never be forgotten by the British 



PIOZZIANA. 5 

public, were it only because her name is closely con- 
nected with that of Johnson, whose reputation will 
endure as long as the language — and the nation he 
adorned. And were it possible that the most amusing 
book ever written, BoswelPs account of him, could have 
dropped into neglect, — that now can never happen, — 
Mr. Croker's edition of his entertaining work having 
communicated new interest to his pages, on many of 
which the accomplished editor's pen has shed light and 
lustre. But fidelity obliged Mr. Croker to preserve un- 
altered, all that Boswell, &c, had accumulated respect- 
ing Mrs. P. in which there is not only a great proportion 
of gossip, but of malignity and affected derision. My 
wish is to exhibit her, or at least make her show herself 
in a different and more favourable point of view, which 
I hope to do in the course of this slight essay. 

In direct contradiction to Boswell, Beloe, and 
others, I venture to assert that it was not in the power 
of any one who knew her to find aught in her charac- 
ter to despise, nor to refuse the meed of admiration 
to her benevolence, her talents, and her acquirements, 
or to the fascinating courtliness of her manners. The 
worst which could be said of her, with truth, by the 



t) PIOZZIANA. 

moralist or the critic, is that some passages of her 
life were marked by singularity; and that in her 
(prose) writings especially, she frequently assumed a 
childish style, to avoid, as I believe, being thought 
laborious and pedantic. But, on the other hand, did 
I contemplate a formal defence of her, I could bring 
proofs in abundance, that various parts of her conduct, 
in circumstances the most trying, were in rigid con- 
formity to the principles of sound sense ; and that the 
world of letters has obligations to her for many a 
beauteous page. 

On the event of her death, which took place in 
May, 1821, and in her eighty-second year, an article 
was published in a Bristol newspaper, very well 
written, and I apprehend, by Mrs. Pennington of the 
Hot-wells, Clifton, in which her last words are men- 
tioned. They are remarkable; and Mrs. Pennington 
spoke to me of the scene on the awful occasion, as one 
of the most striking imaginable. Mrs. Piozzi had 
lain for some time silent, and as if exhausted, but 
suddenly sat up, and with a piercing aspect, and slow 
distinct utterance, said, " I die in the trust, and the 
fear of God ! " Such words from such a person are 



PIOZZIANA. 7 

replete with meaning, and contain a lesson which 
should not be forgotten ; implying that neither con- 
fidence nor despair belonged properly to a reasoning 
being who believed herself about to pass into a state 
of everlasting existence. I feel, indeed, convinced 
that had she possessed strength sufficient, she would 
have gone farther into, and enlarged on, the subject 
of her firm belief as a christian, and the ground of 
that reliance which I know she had. It is to be 
lamented that she did not, for she had much more 
right to speak on religious topics, than many who 
profess themselves theologians. She not only read 
and wrote Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, but had for 
sixty years constantly and ardently studied the Scrip- 
tures, and the works of commentators, in the original 
languages ; and during her lengthened life conversed 
with the soundest divines and best scholars of the age. 
Being endowed with a most retentive memory, and 
the rarest acuteness of understanding, she surely was 
eminently qualified " to give a reason for the faith 
that was in her." 

She had, however, to the close of her last illness, 
her senses perfect, though unable to articulate ; and 



8 PIOZZIANA. 

when in this state, was visited by her friend Sir 
George Smith Gibbes, so well known in Bath, and 
so much esteemed for his urbanity, his various at- 
tainments, extensive charities, and great professional 
skill. 

Meeting Sir George in about a month after his 
farewell interview with her, he described to me a cir- 
cumstance which took place on the awful occasion, of 
a nature too extraordinary to be disregarded or omit- 
ted in this record. When the dying lady saw him at 
her bed-side, she signified by her looks that she knew 
him well, and that neither his benevolence nor talents 
could be of any use ; and, unable to speak, conveyed 
her mournful conviction of her situation, by tracing 
in the air with her extended hands, the exact out- 
line of a coffin, and then lay calmly down. 

It will naturally be expected that in writing of a 
female, and one so distinguished as Mrs. Piozzi, I 
should mention her personal appearance, but it is not 
easy to describe it. She was short, and though well- 
proportioned, broad, and deep-chested. Her hands 
were muscular and almost coarse, but her writing was, 
even in her 80th year, exquisitely beautiful ; and one 



PIOZZIANA. 



day, while conversing with her on the subject of edu- 
cation, she observed that " all Misses now a-days, 
wrote so like each other, that it was provoking ; " 
adding, " I love to see individuality of character, and 
abhor sameness, especially in what is feeble and 
flimsy." Then, spreading her hand, she said, " I 
believe I owe what you are pleased to call my good 
\ writing, to the shape of this hand, for my uncle, Sir 
1 Robert Cotton, thought it was too manly to be em- 
ployed in writing like a boarding-school girl; and 
so I came by my vigorous, black manuscript." 

Her countenance is constantly in my recollection ; 
but could I have forgotten it, I should have been 
reminded of its striking features by a good miniature 
of her in my possession. This was her gift to me, in 
her 77th year, accompanied by some lines, of her own 
composition, enclosed in the case containing this valu- 
able memorial. She gave the ingenious artist, Roche 
of Bath, many sittings; and enjoined him to make 
the painting in all respects a likeness ; to take care to 
show her face deeply rouged, which it always was • 
and to introduce a trivial deformity of the lower jaw 
on the left side, where she told me she had been 



10 PIOZZIANA. 

severely hurt by her horse treading on her as she lay 
prostrate, after being thrown in Hyde Park. This 
miniature is, in the essential of resemblance, perfect ; 
as all who recollect the original, her very erect car- 
riage, and most expressive face, could attest. 

Sometimes, when she favoured me and mine with a 
visit, she used to look at her little self, as she called 
it, and speak drolly of what she once was, as if talking 
of some one else ; and one day, turning to me, I re - 
member her saying, "no, I never was handsome; I 
had always too many strong points in my face for 
beauty." I ventured to express a doubt of this, and 
said that Doctor Johnson was certainly an admirer of 
her personal charms. She replied that she believed 
his devotion was at least as warm towards the table 
and the table-talk at Streatham. This was, as is well 
known, Mrs. Thrale's place of residence in the coun- 
try. I was tempted to observe that I thought, as I 
still do, that Johnson's anger on the event of her 
second marriage was excited by some feeling of dis- 
appointment; and that I suspected he had formed 
hopes of attaching her to himself. It would be dis- 
ingenuous on my part to attempt to repeat her answer: 



PIOZZIANA. 11 

I forget it; but the impression on my mind is that 
she did not contradict me. 

Conversing on her appearance when young, she 
mentioned an extraordinary fact, the particulars of 
which I, long after, communicated to the public, in a 
letter to the Editor of the " Gentleman's Magazine ;" 
the substance may be repeated here. She inquired 
if I had ever seen, when in Dublin, a painting by 
Hogarth, in the splendid library of the Earl of Charle- 
mont, and which had been executed by the renowned 
artist for the father of the present peer; it was called 
"the Lady's last Stake." I said I had never seen 
the picture, but had heard of it often, and remembered 
some notice of it in Ireland's Hogarth: when she 
proceeded to state, as nearly as I can recollect, that j^ 
one evening Hogarth called on her uncle Cotton, 
with whom she lived; and seeing her, then a girl of 
about fourteen, examined her countenance studiously, 
and addressed her, saying, " stay quiet until I make 
a memorandum of your face." This he did in his 
pocket-book, observing, that " he would put her into 
a picture, the subject of which would be a lesson to 
her to avoid the danger arising from deep play ; and 



12 PIOZZ1ANA. 

that when finished, she should see what he had done." 
After a lapse of some weeks, Hogarth paid another 
visit, and then exhibited " the Lady's last Stake." 
"But," said Mrs. P., "he had scarcely attempted a 
likeness, having made his rash lady a beauty; and 
there's the history of this very clever work of the 
famous painter." Since the appearance of my letter 
in the " Gentleman's Magazine," a splendid engrav- 
ing, in mezzo-tinto, of the above-mentioned painting 
has been published. 

Of her erudition, and the powers of her mind, I 
find it difficult to speak so as to satisfy myself, yet 
meet, in some degree, what I believe to be the 
opinion of others. 

Making every allowance for BoswelPs insinuations, 
and Gifford's satire, it might be too much to say that 
she appeared a scholar and a wit in the eyes of a 
judge so formidable as Johnson. I confess I thought 
her both ; and indeed cannot avoid believing that even 
Johnson highly appreciated her talents and accom- 
plishments; he was shamefully insincere if he did 
not. Many proofs might be adduced that she knew 
more of books, and possessed larger stores of appli- 



PIOZZrANA. 13 

cable literature and entertaining anecdote, than most 
females, or than several of the other sex, who have 
been generally and greatly extolled. But, a refe- 
rence to one of her literary labours, which fell under 
my own observation, will answer the purpose of 
showing that she had pretensions, and of no ordinary 
kind, to the character of a learned and ingenious 
writer. 

Early in the year 1815, I called on her, then resi- 
dent in New King Street, Bath, to examine, by her 
desire, a manuscript which she informed me she was 
preparing for the press. After a short general con- 
versation, we sat down to a table on which lay two 
manuscript volumes, one of them, the fair copy of her 
work, in her own incomparably fine hand-writing. 
The title was "Lyford Redivivus;" the idea being 
taken from a diminutive old volume, printed, if I do 
not forget, in 1657, and professing to be an alpha- 
betical account of the names of men and women, and 
their derivations. Her work was somewhat on this 
plan: the christian or first name given, Charity, for 
instance, followed by its etymology ; anecdotes of the 
eminent or obscure, who have borne the appellation ; 



14 PIOZZIANA. 

applicable epigrams, biographical sketches, short poeti- 
cal illustrations, &c. 

I read over twelve or fourteen articles, and found 
them exceedingly interesting; abounding in spirit, 
and in what to my very limited knowledge appeared 
novelty ; and all supported by quotations in Hebrew, 
Greek, Latin, Italian, French, Celtic and Saxon. 
There was a learned air over all I read ; and in every 
page, much information, ably compressed, and forming 
what I should have supposed, an excellent popular 
volume. She was now seventy-five; and I naturally 
complimented her, not only on the work in question, 
but the amazing beauty and variety of her hand- 
writing. She seemed gratified, allowed me to make a 
few extracts, and desired me to mention the MS. to 
some London publisher. This I afterwards did, and 
sent the work to one alike distinguished for discern- 
ment and liberality, but with whom we could not 
come to an arrangement. I have heard no more of 
" Lyford Redivivus" since, and know not in whose 
hands the MS. may now be. The following copy of 
one of my extracts, will give a general idea of the 
work, though by no means the most favourable. 



PIOZZIANA. 15 



"BELINDA. 

"The name is familiar to our fancy since Pope's 
elegant letter to Miss Fermor, preceding his beautiful 
poem, the Rape of the Lock. The appellation is 
appropriate to any much admired damsel ; admired for 
her personal charms I mean; we could in no wise 
endure an ugly, or an awkward Belinda. 

"Meanwhile, a lady of quality once gave her friend, 
(Mrs. Piozzi means that the gift was to herself; she 
still had it in her possession ;) a little chest for tea, 
made of the willow-tree Pope planted at Twickenham, 
in the year 1715; which Lady Howe cut down four- 
score years after; and the people cried shame, and 
struggled for bits of it. But, said a gentleman, there 
should be two words on the box, methinks, to tell what 
it is, or nobody will guess at its value, or its oddity; 
only just two words. I know, said another, no two 
words that would explain the matter, unless they were 
tu doces — thou tea-chest. This raised a laugh ; and 
Lady K. requesting she might be let into the jest, if 
there were any; one of us, (Mrs. Piozzi, who wrote 



16 PIOZZIANA. 

them;) sent lier these verses in the morning, from 
a rough rock in North- Wales, where the box was 
intended to reside. 

" Thou Tea-chest ! form'd from Pope's fam'd willow, 
Which served our poet for his pillow, 
When round His head gay visions rose 
Of bright Belinda, and her beaux ; 
Torn from thy Thames, to scenes thus rude, 
How much of life's vicissitude — 

Thou tea-chest ! 

" Presented by a noble dame, 
From thee I hop'd inspiring flame, 
But no : that Indian shrub alone 
Which at thy birth was scarcely known, 
In fragrant fumes of fresh bohea, 
Is all I can inhale from thee, 

Thou tea-chest!" 



« METHUSELAH 
has been long recorded and renowned for having 
lived more years than were ever permitted to any- 
other mortal. Lyford says he begged for death. No 
wonder, having existed through nine centuries ! But 
the meaning of his name has been variously explained. 



PIOZZIANA. 



17 



Rowlands, to whom 


I referred under the article, 


Enosh, exhibits a surprising chain of ideas applicable 


to the names of the 


ten Patriarchs from Adam to 


Noah inclusive, thus. 




Adam .... 


Man. 


Seth .... 


Set, or placed. 


Enosh .... 


In misery. 


Kainan . . . 


Lamenting. 


Mahaleel . . 


Blessed God. 


Jared .... 


Shall come down. 


Enoch .... 


Teaching'. 


Methuselah 


That his death will send. 


Lamech . . . 


To humbled, smitten man. 


Noah .... 


Consolation." 



« JOB, 

oppressed by enemieso His three daughters, Jemima, 
the dawn ; Kezia, a struggle with poverty ; Keren- 
happuk, the horn of abundance." 



« MADOC, 
Derived from the Celtic Ma-du-ux. Dux has been 

c 



18 PIOZZIANA. 

always a leader, a conductor. There came out a book 
some twenty-five years ago, about 1790, giving an 
account of the tribes of North Wales, where these 
long departed princes were faithfully recorded by the 
names of Ma'-c/oe, and Fa'-doc, and Cur-ogie ; but 
a wicked wag from London crying out, ' What's 
here ? a history of mad-dog, and fat-dog, and cur- 
ogey,' — drove names, and book, and all away, till 
Mr. Southey called them again into notice." 






In general society Mrs. Piozzi was retiring and 
reserved; at least as reserved as is consistent with 
good-breeding, of which she was a perfect mistress. 

In large assemblies, at her own house, or else- 
where, she talked, but in a subdued tone, and only on 
common topics; for she knew the world of politeness 
too well not to remember that absolute silence is as 
vulgar and vexatious, as loquacity, or claiming too 
much attention to ourselves, would be. 

In familiar conversation with a few intimates, she 
was animated and interesting, certainly beyond any 
person I ever met. She excelled in the delicate art 



PIOZZIANA, 19 

of exciting and encouraging others to talk; quickly 
discovered the points on which each was most likely 
to "be best informed, and would then either express 
her wish to one of the party, to be better acquainted 
with such or such particulars, or put a question, as if 
she actually did want information. 

She attended eagerly to the expected reply ; and 
seemed so grateful for the communication made to 
her, that the person appealed to felt himself for the 
time in a state of superiority to the inquirer. In fact 
she perpetually contrived to appear at first less learned 
than she really was; and not only avoided hurting 
any one's self-love, but had the ingenuity to augment 
it, and afford others the triumph of thinking that their 
agreeableness was the cause of hers ! 

She told a story incomparably well; omitting every 
thing frivolous or irrelevant, accumulating all the im- 
portant circumstances, and after a short pause (her 
aspect announcing that there was yet more to come), 
finished with something new, pointed, and brilliant. 

To render all this more fascinating, she would 
throw into her narrative a gentle imitation — not 
mimicry, of the parties concerned, at which they 

c2 



20 PIOZZIANA. 

might themselves have been present without feeling 
offended. 

In this way she once, I remember, gave us two 
scenes; one at Streatham and the other, I think, in 
London ; both infinitely interesting, but for different 
reasons; and rendered surprisingly dramatic by her 
mode of relating what passed. The first referred to 
one of Johnson's eccentric habits. A large company 
had just sat down to the dinner-table, where John- 
son's chair was, however, still vacant; for, though the 
Doctor had been heard descending the stairs, he was 
not yet withinside the door, " So," said Mrs. P., " I 
supposed there was something wrong, and making 
my excuses, started up, and ran in search of my 
loiterer; and there was he in the passage, indulging 
in one of his strange whims ; stepping forward, draw- 
ing back his leg, and then another step ! I scolded 
him soundly; not for affectation, nor absence of mind, 
for, to do him justice, of all such absurdities he was 
incapable ; but for pursuing a queer practice at a time 
when others were waiting. At length I got him in; 
and after dinner he made us ample amends by his 
talk, as he did invariably." In telling this, she bent 



PIOZZIANA. 21 

her neck sideways, looked solemn, and stepped to and 
fro, so as to transmit, I have no doubt, a very good 
notion of Johnson's air. 

The other anecdote to which I have alluded is 
altogether exceedingly curious ; involving a serious 
charge against Johnson's dignity of mind ; and that of 
another equally distinguished man. I should observe 
that this was told to me, when but two or three of 
those most intimate with the narrator were present. 
I had remarked to her that Johnson's readiness to 
condemn any moral deviation in others was, in a man 
so entirely before the public as he was, nearly a proof 
of his own spotless purity of conduct. She said, 
"Yes, Johnson was, on the whole, a rigid moralist; 
but he could be ductile, I may say, servile; and I 
will give you an instance. We had a large dinner- 
party at our house ; Johnson sat on one side of me, 
and Burke on the other ; and in the company there 
was a young female (Mrs. Piozzi named her), to 
whom I, in my peevishness, thought Mr. Thrale 
superfluously attentive, to the neglect of me and 
others ; especially of myself, then near my confine- 
ment, and dismally low-spirited; notwithstanding 



22 PIOZZIANA. 

which, Mr. T. very unceremoniously begged of me 
to change place with Sophy , who was threat- 
ened with a sore-throat, and might be injured by 
sitting near the door. I had scarcely swallowed a 
spoonful of soup when this occurred, and was so over- 
set by the coarseness of the proposal, that I burst into 
tears, said something petulant— that perhaps ere long, 
the lady might be at the head of Mr. TVs table, 
without displacing the mistress of the house, &c, and 
so left the apartment. I retired to the drawing-room, 
and for an hour or two contended with my vexation, 
as I best could, when Johnson and Burke came up. 
On seeing them, I resolved to give a jobation to both, 
but fixed on Johnson for my charge, and asked him 
if he had noticed what passed, what I had suffered, 
and whether, allowing for the state of my nerves, I 
was much to blame ? He answered, ' Why, possibly 
not ; your feelings were outraged.' I said, ' Yes, 
greatly so ; and I cannot help remarking with what 
blandness and composure you witnessed the outrage. 
Had this transaction been told of others, your anger 
would have known no bounds; but, towards a man 
who gives good dinners, &c , you were meekness 



PIOZZIANA. 23 

itself!' Johnson coloured, and Burke, I thought, 
looked foolish ; but I had not a word of answer from 
either." 



GHOSTS. 

The subject of ghosts and apparitions is one which 
has engaged almost every class of mind, from the 
highest to the least enlightened. On one occasion I 
introduced it before her, from a strong desire to ascer- 
tain her way of thinking on the question of supersti- 
tion; being persuaded that I should hear something- 
ingenious from her ; something which would be nei- 
ther an imbecile admission of her belief in ghosts, &c, 
nor a gross and vulgar condemnation of those who 
hold that the departed are allowed to revisit this 
earthly scene. She accordingly enlarged very amus- 
ingly on stories of preternatural appearances; told 
several good ones which she had heard and read, 
showed how much of national character might be 
traced in popular credulity of every kind, and ended 
by declaring that her opinion was precisely in accord- 



24 PIOZZIANA. 

ance with mine. This, however startling at first, is 
nevertheless such as must be that of any one who 
takes the trouble to reflect ; and it is that all, or nearly 
all, the ghost stories commonly related, are, in the 
strictest sense of the word, true. She maintained 
seriously, and with much argument happily applied, 
that these tales of apparitions are narratives of waking 
dreams, to which we are as liable as to those that 
occupy the imagination in sleep; and that when a 
man tells how he saw one known to be dead, or at 
the moment possibly five hundred miles off, he either 
mistook one object of vision for another; or absolutely 
did see, in a leaking dream, the subject of his rela- 
tion ; and that there was no violation of moral truth 
in either of these supposed cases. The want of vera- 
city in the ordinary relaters of such stories, is to be 
found among those who repeat the statements of the 
original dreamer. She was convinced, as I am, that 
a disordered state of the stomach, or something irre- 
gular in the circulation of the blood, was the main 
cause alike of sight-seeing during sleep, and of dreams 
by day, and when the visionary is broad awake. She 
made many pertinent and curious remarks on this 



PIOZZIANA. t25 

subject; one of which was that the sleeper who, in 
the night, saw forms and colours in his dream, was so 
much under the dominion of delusion as to imagine 
that it was light, when in fact it was dark; and that 
there was no reason to be assigned for the powers 
of fancy not being as great in a waking as a sleeping 
state. She then repeated the particulars of a spectre 
seen by (I think she said) Miles Andrews, and which 
have been differently told elsewhere ; but she assured 
me, on her ivord, that she had the circumstances as I 
shall report them, from the sight-seer's own mouth. 

It seems that Lord Lyttelton, meeting Andrews in 
a street in London, informed him that he intended 
him a visit such a day, at his country residence, not 
far from town. Andrews gladly heard of this, and 
left London to prepare for the reception of his noble 
friend. The day, and the dinner hour came, but not 
Lord L., nor any message from him. His host to no 
purpose waited, sat up beyond his general time of 
retiring, and at length went to bed, leaving lights 
burning when he lay down. In a few minutes after- 
wards, and while yet wide awake, he saw Lord L. 
wearing his well-known dressing-gown, and seated in 



26 PIOZZIANA. 

a chair at the farther extremity of the room; on which 
he upbraided him for the disappointment his neglect 
had inflicted on him, and jocularly scolded him for the 
frolic he had indulged in, desiring him to go to his 
own room, and leave him to his repose. Lord Lyttel- 
ton at that instant rose, and, as Andrews concluded, 
glided behind a large arm-chair. 

He now rang the bell for his confidential servant, 
and desired him to make fast the doors, and go to 
rest, since Lord L. was at last in the house. The 
servant, staring, said that could not be, as he had 
locked all the doors some hours before, and that 
assuredly his lordship had not arrived. Andrews told 
the astonished man what he had seen and said ; and 
rising, proceeded with him to the apartment usually 
assigned to Lord L., and elsewhere through the house, 
but found him not. Next day Andrews went to town, 
and finding Lord Lyttelton confined by indisposition, 
repeated his wonderful history to him ; but the other 
solemnly declared he had not left his room since they 

met in street, having been ill ; and observed, 

that he had not sent an excuse, as too ceremonious. 
This is nearly as good a ghost-story as can w r ell be got 



PIOZZIANA. 27 

up; yet manifestly the vision was the result of a wak- 
ing dream, suggested by the anxiety of the expectant 
for the wished-for visit of his accomplished guest. 



PEDIGREE. 

Having had a conversation with her on antiquity of 
families, and her own descent, I received from Mrs. 
Piozzi the following letter. I cherish the original as 
a document of great value : — 

" Charles Sixth of France 

Married Isabella of Bavaria : 

Their daughter Katherine married Henry V. of England ; 

And after his death, Owen Tudor ; 

by whom she had three sons. 

The first of these, Edmund Earl of Richmond. 

was father to Henry VII. 

The second was Jasper Earl of Pembroke ; 

The third was Fychan Tudor de Berayne ; 

His son married Jasper's daughter ; 

and 

Had an only child ; who, wedding 

Constance D' Aubigne, 

favourite Lady to Anne de Bretagne, 

was father to the famous Heiress, 

Katherine Tudor de Berayne, 



28 PIOZZIANA. 

Cousin and ward to Queen Elizabeth, 

And who, with her Majesty's express approbation, 

Married Sir John Salusbury of Lleweney. 

When he died, she was addressed 

by Maurice Wynne of Gwydir, 

as she returned from following her husband to the grave, 

and told him she had engaged herself to Sir Richard Clough, 

but that if she was unfortunate enough to survive him, 

She consented to be Lady Gwydir ; 

and so she was : 

and after Maurice Wynne's death, wedded 

Thelwall of Plas y Ward 

and with his, her bones repose. 

Her heart lies buried, by her own command, with that of her 

second husband, who died at Antwerp (but whose heart was 

brought to Wales and interred with hers). Her estate was settled 

by her guardian, Queen Elizabeth, on her first husband, Sir John 

Salusbury of Lleweney, 

Whose son, surnamed Sir John the Strong, married Lady Ur- 
sula Stanley, Dowager Countess of Derby ; and their son, at a 
very advanced age, had only one daughter, by a Miss Myddelton, 
Hester Salusbury ; who marrying Sir Robert Cotton, of Com- 
bermere, transferred the name and estate to their son, who 
wedded Philadelphia Lynch, and was, by her, father to Hester 
Maria Cotton, by marriage Hester Maria Salusbury, and the 
incomparable mother of an only child, your friend, 

Hester Lynch Piozzi. 
Meanwhile, 
Katherine de Berayne, after the death of Sir John Salusbury, 
married Sir Richard Clough, and had by him two daughters, one 



PIOZZIANA. 29 

of whom married Wynne of Melai, and is ancestress to Lord 
Newborough. The other married Roger Salusbury of Bachy 
Graig, youngest brother of Sir John Salusbury of Lleweney, 
between whose ages there were sixteen years, I have been told. 
Their son by him married a Myddleton of Chirk Castle, and their 
son John married a Miss Norris of Speke. 

Their son Thomas married Bridget Percival, 

and 

their son married Mary Pennant of Downing ; 

their son married Lucy Salusbury, his uncle's daughter ; 

and 

their son was father by Hester Maria Cotton, 

to 

Hester Lynch Piozzi. 
Thus Katherine de Berayne obtained the appellation of Mam 
y Cymry, mother of Wales ; having had offspring by all her 
four husbands, and connecting them each with the other. My 
uncle sold the Berayne estate to Hughes, the rich possessor of 
the Parys copper mine in Anglesea, and the Lleweney estate to 
Lord Kirkwall's father — Fitzmaurice, who married the Countess 
of Orkney. His son has since sold poor Lleweney itself to the 
same Mr. Hughes, who has pulled down the venerable mansion 
built 1000 years ago ; and my heart bled to see its ruin, when I 
was in Denbighshire last August, 1816. 

And now I think here is tediousness enough." 



30 PIOZZIANA. 

ANCIENT VASES, &c. 
One day, paying a visit to her, at her house in 
Gay Street, Bath, she showed me a small cabinet of 
china ware, &c. Among other articles of the collec- 
tion, were two vases of baked clay ; one about twelve, 
the other, perhaps fifteen inches high, externally 
black and glazed. The smaller vase was plain ; the 
other, and larger, distinguished by rude figures in 
relief, somewhat resembling Pegasus, and other forms ; 
both in perfect preservation, and probably designed 
for holding wine. She stated that they were pre- 
sented to her by Count Visconti; that she returned 
him her thanks for such fine antiques, and that the 
count replied that they were indeed such, having been 
antiques in the time of Cicero, in the ruins of whose 
villa of Tusculanum they were found. They were 
Etruscan, she presumed, and of an age before Romulus, 
and possibly almost three thousand years old. She 
also exhibited a pair of china bottles, adorned with 
mouth-pieces and hoops of silver, which had been 
four hundred years in the possession of her family, 
and were brought from the East by early navigators, 






PIOZZIANA. 31 

before the discovery of the Cape of Good-Hope, and 
when the voyage from Europe lasted three years. 



BATTLE OF BOSWORTH. 

Passing an evening with her in October, 1816, she 
entertained her company with several stories, and 
among them, told the following. She said, that in the 
family of Mostyn, in Denbighshire, with whom she 
was connected, she had frequently seen a golden cup, 
the history of which was repeated to her by the pre- 
sent possessor. 

King Henry V1L, when Earl of Richmond, and 
on his way to fight Richard the Third at Bosworth, 
stopped for a day at Mostyn-hall; and on leaving, 
told Lady Mostyn that, should he be victorious, as 
he hoped to be, he would, when the battle was over, 
send her his sword by a special messenger, whom he 
should despatch from the field. He won the day, 
and sent the sword, as he promised ; and for ages it 
hung in the armoury at Mostyn. But a good old lady 
of the family at length observing that the hilt was of 



32 P10ZZIANA. 

pure gold, and exclaiming that it was a pity metal of 
such value should lie useless, had the handle melted 
down, and converted into a caudle-cup. The blade 
was lost. 



MRS. SIDDONS. 

I possess, in the hand-writing of Mrs. Piozzi, the 

following impromptu, on hearing Mrs. Siddons read 

passages from the Paradise Lost; by Sir William 

Weller Pepys, Bart. 

" When Siddons reads from Milton's page, 
Then sound and sense unite ; 
Her varying tones our hearts engage, 
With exquisite delight : 

" So well these varying tones accord 
With his seraphic strain, 
We hear, we feel in ev'ry word 
His Angels speak again." 



GARTH THE POET. 
In June, 1817, I received a billet from her, in 
which she says, " here is the very passage that seduced 



piozztana. 33 

me to believe the lines were written by Dryden." 
This communication refers to a passage in Bowles's 
edition of Pope's works; vol. i. page 312, note on 
verse 122 of the " Rape of the Lock." " Each silver 
vase." Parnell accidentally hearing Pope repeat the 
description of the toilette, privately turned the lines 
into monkish-latin verses; and Pope, to whom he 
immediately communicated them, was astonished at 
the resemblance, till Parnell undeceived him. Mr. 
Harte told me that Dryden had been imposed on by 
a similar little stratagem. One of his friends trans- 
lated into Latin verse, printed and pasted on the 
bottom of an old hat-box, that celebrated passage — 

" To die is landing on some silent shore," &c. 

and that Dryden, on opening the box, was alarmed 
and amazed. — Warton. 

This, I observed to Mrs. Piozzi, who had men- 
tioned the supposed fact, is some mistake on the 
part of Harte, or Warton ; the passage being in the 
third part of Garth's 6€ Dispensary ;" but the story 
might be true of Garth, 



34 PIOZZIANA. 

CONVERSATION. 
1815. 

We were talking of books generally, when she 
spoke in the highest possible terms of Walter Scott ; 
and said he was a great and extraordinary being, had 
revived the spirit of poetry, and added lustre to his 
age and country. She did not treat Lord Byron with 
much respect as a writer ; but broke away into enco- 
miums on Mackenzie, the author of " the Man of 
Feeling," &c. ; and said she was charmed with the 
title lately given him by the unknown author of the 
new novel, " Waverley ;" and that Mackenzie was 
indeed " the Addison of Scotland." 

She added that she had passed some happy hours 
in Edinburgh ; and was delighted to find there, in the 
language, style of building, and general manners, so 
many vestiges of France, introduced, no doubt, in the 
days of the hapless Mary. 

She greatly admired, she said, the Scottish people, 
admitting that I was right in observing, as I did to 
compliment her, that Boswell was an obtuse man, and 
did not understand Johnson, when he represents him 



PIOZZIANA. 35 

as malevolently disposed towards Scotland ; while, in 
fact, his sarcastic mode of speaking of that nation, 
was only his way of being facetious. This led her to 
remark that she knew the famous John Wilkes well, 
and had often enjoyed his fine " conversation talents." 
She recalled the droll retort of Wilkes, when he one 
day overheard Johnson enlarging on the subject of 
human freedom, and cried out, " What is the man 
saying? Liberty sounds as oddly in his mouth, as 
Religion would in mine!" 

Reverting to Mackenzie, she said she did not, any 
more than Doctor Johnson, think highly of his " Man 
of the World ; " and that Johnson, whose name she 
frequently introduced, was the reverse of illiberal with 
regard to Scotland, or Scottish genius ; for that he 
perpetually took opportunities of applauding both ; 
and was one time speaking most praisingly of Thom- 
son, when a Scotch gentleman came in; on which 
Johnson immediately desisted; and said afterwards, 
that he " could not endure to hear one Scot magnify 
another, which he knew would be the case." 

I reminded her of what he so bitterly said of 
another race of people, as distinguished from those 

d2 



36 PIOZZIANA. 

of Scotland; she laughed, and said that was very 
bitterly intended. Speaking of France and Italy, 
she observed that Italy was the most lovely region on 
earth; yet, that while it had in it more splendid 
remains of antiquity, and more beauties of every 
kind, it had also more beggars, more dirt, and more 
superstition, than all the rest of the world combined. 
She professed that she dearly loved France, and 
French habits; and said that in 1775, she passed some 
most agreeable days in Paris, with her husband, Mr. 
Thrale ; when he made acquaintance with Santerre, 
with whom he wished to commune on the business of 
their mutual calling, that of brewing: that at this time 
there was a procession ; and a noble horse belonging 
to Santerre impeding the advance of the courtly train, 
a military grandee of the royal party drew out a pistol 
and shot the animal dead on the spot. The act filled 
Santerre with indignation, and (as Mrs. Piozzi was 
convinced ) made him what he subsequently proved, 
a most inveterate revolutionist. It is well remembered 
that Santerre commanded the national guard, on the 
21st of January, 1793; and rode close to the scaffold 
on which Louis XVI. perished. 



PIOZZIANA. 37 

She spoke with much pleasant affectation of jealousy, 
of Wales, her country ; and said it was greatly neg- 
lected by historians, topographers, and antiquaries; 
for that the Principality had to boast, not only of infi- 
nite natural beauties, but of stores of human genius 
that the British language should not be allowed to de- 
cay, as she was afraid it would; but that it was not yet 
forgotten, as in the preceding summer she had heard 
the Church-service in Welsh, and " Brennin Sior," 
King George, prayed for. She observed, that the Eng- 
lish, properly so called, though they had not any music 
to vaunt of, had a superabundance of wit in their pro- 
verbs, popular sayings, and caricatures ; and remem- 
bered, for example, some years ago, a pungent but 
untranslatable toast in circulation, which she thought a 
genuine specimen of national humour ; " God save the 
King ; — the Prince of Wales for ever ! " She showed 
me a very clever drawing, well coloured, of her place 
in Wales ; which, she added, was almost in ruins, but 
had been put into repair by the care and generosity 
of her husband, Mr. Piozzi, of w^hom she invariably 
spoke with ardent affection and respect. In the course 
of talk, she said she presumed Mackenzie's " Man of 



38 PIOZZIANA. 

Feeling " to have been written before Sterne published 
his " Sentimental Journey;" (which I ventured to 
doubt,) and mentioned, as admirably well written, a 
paper on Spring in the Mirror ; asking if I knew the 
author. Strictly speaking I do not ; but told her I had 
heard that Essay attributed to the pen of an accom- 
plished Irish gentleman of the name of Dickson, after- 
wards a physician, and, I believe, many years dead. 

Speaking of Scott, she said his " Marmion " was a 
fine poem, but that his best writing was to be — and pro- 
bably always ivould be — found among the short pieces 
of " Border Poetry," which he published first. 



SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 

Conversing on the character of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
she, though a great admirer of the artist, told me this 
story of him to prove what she asserted, that he was 
imperfectly educated; and occasionally made her 
start by betraying ignorance on points not directly 
belonging to his profession. He had painted a pic- 
ture of two celebrated beauties of the time, sitting in 



PIOZZIANA. 39 

a garden, with a landscape in the distance. On the 
seat in which the ladies were placed, he had inscribed, 
"et in Arcadia ego !" which, said Mrs. Piozzi, he did 
as not understanding the words ; or at least their 
application. They form the inscription on a tomb in 
Gaspar Poussin's fine picture of Arcadia, intimating 
that death was even in the region of innocence and 
delight. This comment of hers she had communi- 
cated to Johnson, who, she assured me, agreed with 
her as to the absurdity of what the great English 
painter had done. But a gentleman who was present 
when she repeated the above, suggested, as most pro- 
bable, her having overlooked some circumstance in the 
composition authorising Sir Joshua's introduction of 
the Latin words in Poussin's picture. The sentence 
is, I believe, not in Latin, but Italian. 



ETYMOLOGY. 



She was exceedingly fond of tracing words to their 
sources, and had accumulated an immensity of odd 
derivations. For instance, she one day told me that 



40 PIOZZIANA. 

the phrase on tick came from the following origin. 
In Elizabeth's time, such persons as frequented the 
theatres, the Globe, the Curtain, &c., in Southwark, 
crossed from the city in boats, each receiving a ticket 
from the waterman who ferried the parties over. 
This was shown on retiring from the play in search 
of their boats ; so the proper boat attended, and they 
who thus went and came were specified, for shortness, 
as persons "on tick" and who were trusted for the 
payment of their fare till re-landed on their own side 
of the river. She subjoined — u this etymology sounds 
ridiculously — but, let any one find me a better/' 



JEMMY TWITCHER. 

I asked her for the true cause of the name Jemmy 
Twitcher, being given to Lord Sandwich. It will be 
remembered that in " The Beggars' Opera," Act iii. 
Scene 5, Macheath exclaims, " that Jemmy Twitcher 
should 'peach me, I own surprised me." At the 
tumultuous period of Wilkes's uproar, he, who had 
been originally on terms of friendship with Lord 



FIOZZIANA. 41 

Sandivich, found in his lordship the chief instigator of 
government against him. Accordingly, when the opera 
was next performed, and Beard, the Macheath of the 
day, delivered the above-mentioned words, the people, 
recollecting the reported perfidy of Lord S. to his poli- 
tical friend Wilkes, their idol, and applying the sarcasm, 
fixed the title of Jemmy Twitcher on the great man. The 
nick-name is recorded in Herbert Crofts " Love and 
Madness," or, letters from Hackman to Miss Martha 
Rae, who lived with Lord Sandwich. 



CHARADE. 

She had a happy turn for the lighter sort of verse ; 
and could, I am persuaded, have written a clever sati- 
rical epigram, that most difficult of poetical efforts; 
but her goodness of heart was greater even than her 
acuteness of observation. As a specimen of her play- 
fulness, here is, from a copy given to me by herself, a 
charade. 

" Est totum flumen, caput aufer, splendet in armis ; 
Caudam demc, volat : viscera tolle, dolet." 



42 PIOZZIANA. 

" Translated and amplified for the ladies, by Hester Lynch Piozzi. 

" In fluent streams my liquid whole 
Is seen through foreign realms to roll ; 
Cut off the tail, a bird shall rise, 
Terror and boast of Indian skies : 
Cut off the head, a hero shines 
Immortalized in epic lines ; 
Cut out the bowels, and a wound 
Confest by Romans will be found ; 
Close head and tail — no space between — 
Your riddle's merit must be seen." 

The word is Vulturnus, explained in Latin : 

" Vulturnus flumen ; Turnus splendescit in armis , 
Avolat en Vultur ; vexat quoque corpora — Vulnus, 



LETTER.— GRATTAN. 

" Tuesday Evening, October, 2, 1816. 
" I return you, dear Sir, the only piece of writing 
which could have waked me from the stupor of this 
evening. Doctor Gibbes will tell you to-morrow he 
had made me take opium ; and being no elephant, it 
had subdued and calmed, not warmed and roused me 
to the thoughts of ballh. 



PIOZZIANA. 43 

" Your countryman's eloquence would, however, 
light up fire in mortals half dead, I think ; at least if 

a spark was left within them You did not mean 

to give it me, did you? remember I write in my sleep ; 

" H. L. P." 

This letter refers to a pamphlet I had sent to her ; 
the merit of which she was thoroughly capable of feel- 
ing. It was a printed copy of a speech delivered in 
the House of Commons, in May, 1815, in favour of 
war, by the never-dying Henry Grattan, and a splen- 
did specimen of that great orator's peculiar power, by 
which he brings the most refined language, the richest 
imagery, and the closest logic, to bear upon his sub- 
ject; while he is sublime, he is never obscure: and 
almost all his passages have the terseness of epigram. 
But it is to be lamented that the moral philosopher 
should thus be lost in the statesman, and that the 
atrocities and folly of war should, on any occasion, 
have found an advocate in such a man as Grattan ! 

Doctor Gibbes, so often mentioned in her corres- 
pondence, is the estimable man and distinguished 
physician, Sir George Smith Gibbes, of Bath, already 
noticed in these memoranda. 



44 PIOZZIANA. 

"THE FOUNTAINS," &c. 
" Will my kind patron read the enclosed to his 
ladies ? And will they tell me on Monday what he 
thinks of it? But he is always partial to 

" His much obliged 

" H. L* P. 

" He will be so well aware that this intrusion on 
his good-nature is a mark of confidence in his friend- 
ship, that there is no need to say show it nobody. I 
have longed to mention it, twenty times : — 

" But this is a thing the most oddest, 
Some folks are so plaguily modest, &c. 

" October 25, 1816." 

I think the above sprightly epistle alludes to a small 
dramatic piece formed by Mrs. P. from the substance 
of a fairy tale in French ; and probably not thought 
fit for the stage; but which appeared to me a very 
pretty and ingenious production; it was, however, 
quickly and conscientiously restored to the writer; 
nor can I now tell what became of the manuscript, 
no more than I can what was the fate of another 



PJOZZIANA. 45 

work of her pen, of incalculable value to such readers 
as are fond of anecdote ; i. e., nine-tenths of such 
as read at all. I called on her one day, and at an 
early hour by her desire; when she showed me a 
heap of what are termed pocket-books, and said she 
was sorely embarrassed on a point, upon which she 
condescended to say she would take my advice. 
" You see in that collection," she continued, " a 
diary of mine of more than fifty years of my life : 1 
have scarcely omitted any thing which occurred to me 
during the time I have mentioned ; my books contain 
the conversation of every person of almost every class 
with whom I have held intercourse ; my remarks on 
what was said; down-right facts, and scandalous on 
dits ; personal portraits, and anecdotes of the charac- 
ters concerned; criticisms on the publications and 
authors of the day, &c. Now I am approaching the 
grave, and agitated by doubts as to what I should do 
— whether burn my manuscripts, or leave them to 
futurity? Thus far, my decision is to destroy my 
papers; shall I, or shall I not?" 

I took the freedom of saying, " By no means do 
an act, which done cannot be amended; keep your 



46 PIOZZIANA. 

papers safe from prying eyes ; and at last, trust them 
to the discretion of survivors." Her answer was that, 
at least for the present, they were rescued from the 
flames; and so saying, she replaced the numerous 
volumes in her cabinet. I did not see the inside of 
one of them, and, of course, can say nothing from my 
own knowledge of the contents; but cannot doubt 
that they were, in all respects, most interesting. I 
am led to think this from recollecting the character of 
her mind ; the eagerness with which she sought the 
society of the distinguished in her day; the elevated 
circles in which she was privileged to move; the 
closeness of observation with which she viewed life 
and manners, and her wondrous strength of memory. 
To wish that the reading world should be put in pos- 
session of all she had gathered, might be extravagant; 
but undoubtedly many portions of her Diaries would 
have admitted of publication, and been perused with 
avidity. 



PIOZZTANA. 47 

STANZAS. 

The lines which follow are, I suppose, by her; but 

the copy which I have before me in her handwriting, 

is unaccompanied by any letter or memorandum to 

assist my recollection. I can only conjecture that 

they are referred to in a note, without date, addressed 

to myself, in which Mrs. P. says, " It is' come into 

my head that dear Mr. recollected something 

of these lines this morning. I only recollect our 

conversation dissipating the gloom they were born in, 

about this time two years. If liked, they will do for 

a scrap-book." 

" Is it of intellectual poVrs, 
Which time develops, time devours, 
Which twenty years perhaps are ours, 
That man is vain ? 

" Of such the infant shows no sign, 
And childhood dreads the dazzling shine 
Of knowledge-bright in rays divine, 
As mental pain. 

" Worse still when passions bear the sway, 
Unbridled youth brooks no delay, 
He drives dull reason far away, 

With scorn avow'd ; 



48 PIOZZIANA. 

" For twenty years she reigns at most ; 
Labour and study pay the cost ; 
Just to be rais'd is all our boast 

Above the crowd. 

" Sickness then fills th' uneasy chair, 
Sorrows press round with pain and care, 
While faith just keeps us from despair, 
Wishing to die. 

" Till the farce ends as it began, 
Reason deserts the dying man, 
And leaves t' encounter as he can 
Eternity." 



LETTER. 

" Blake's Hotel, 
" Thursday, Aug. 21, 1817. 

" My dear Mrs. will kindly rejoice to see 

the old handwriting not shaken quite to pieces. Tell 

Mr. that the wheat (and I passed through the 

principal corn counties) has a cold, lean look ; not 

the rich, brown, glowing colour it used to wear in 

brighter seasons : 'tis become completely one of 

* The pale, unripened beauties of the north.' 



PIUZZIANA. 49 

But, as people seem disposed to be contented, I will 
not croak; the hay is everywhere rotting on the 
ground ; it will make good manure. Dear Mr. Thrale 
used to say when the 18th of August was at hand, 
every pond dry, every brook low, and all the hedges 
white with dust, — he would go to Brighthelmstone 
that he might see water ; and now, every pond is over- 
flowing, every little brook become a river, and the 
meadows in flat grounds quite inundated. The best 
is, that the hedges are green as in spring ; and — I 
know not how near we are to ruin, but buildings 
increase so that my knowledge of the town and its 

environs will hardly bring me through. My dear 

friends will find me unaltered, and my nonsense of the 
old colour : a little giddiness in the head last night, 
was my worst complaint; a mere trifle, occasioned by 
the whirl ; and I am better of it this morning. 

" Meanwhile, if Wisdom does cry in the streets, as 
Solomon says she does, the horn-blowers drown her 
voice terribly. I wish to get my work done, and re- 
turn to a quieter region. Some part of that work will 
be unpleasant : I must go to Streatham-park^ the wise 
folks tell me : poor, degraded, denuded Streatham-park f 



50 PIOZZIANA. 

It will be an odious day to me ; but my hope is to 
finish every thing, and set my horses' heads homewards 
next Monday se'nnight. May I find dear No. 11, 
well and happy ; comfort in possession, and pleasure 
in prospect ! And may I, without repining, close my 
own views, so far as they relate to this world, rejoic- 
ing that, among many undeserved delights, I have 

enjoyed that of approving myself, dear Mrs. 's, &c. 

" Most faithful and obliged, 

« H. L. Piozzi." 
Though it is not within the compass of my plan to 
transcribe all, or, possibly, the whole of any of her 
most agreeable letters, I could not resist the tempta- 
tion of inserting the foregoing, which contains many 
characteristic traits worth preserving. What she says 
of the wet summer, and how sunny and dusty August 
used to be, is uttered in playfulness. She was emi- 
nently free from that common infirmity of age, the 
belief that all things and persons were deteriorated, 
and inferior to those of her day. On the contrary, her 
mind went on with the times ; and she took pride, as I 
have often heard her declare, in believing that, on the 
whole, human intellect was advanced; and that morals, 



PIOZZIANA. 51 

manners, taste and dress, were decidedly improved in 
these countries. 

Above a year before the date of this letter, there 
was a sale by auction of the fine collection of por- 
traits at Streatham ; and Mrs. Piozzi took the trouble 
of writing out for me a complete list of the pictures, 
and the prices for which they sold. The following is 
a copy of the list she gave me ; it is different from one 
published about the same time in the London news- 
papers. 

"the streatham portraits. 

Lord Sandys .£36 15 Lady Downshire ; his Heir. 

Lord Lyttelton 43 1 Mr. Lyttelton ; his son. 

Mrs. Piozzi . 81 18 S.Boddington, Esq. arich merchant. 

Goldsmith . 133 7 Duke of Bedford. 

Sir J. Reynolds . 128 2 R. Sharp, Esq. M.P. 

Sir R. Chambers 84 Lady Chambers ; his widow. 

David Garrick . 183 15 Dr. Charles Burney, Greenwich. 

Baretti . 31 10 Stewart, Esq. : I know not who. 

Dr. Burney . 84 Dr. C. Burney of Greenwich his son. 

Edmund Burke . 252 R. Sharp, Esq., M.P. 

Dr. Johnson .378 Watson Taylor, Esq., by whom,for 

Mr. Murphy was offered £102 18s. but I bought it in. 

This is a true account from the priced catalogue, with a thou- 
sand thanks for my sweetly-passed evening. — H, L. P. 

e2 



52 PIOZZIANA. 

I received the above from Mrs. P., March 24, 1817. 
The sale took place in May, 1816 : the portraits are 
all painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. 



LETTER.— SLAVES IN ALGIERS, &c. 

"Bath, Sept 22, 1817. 
" The bells are now ringing for the anniversary 
of the coronation I so well remember enjoying the 
sight of, from the Duke of Devonshire's box, West- 
minster Hall, fifty-five years ago. It would be curious 
to speculate as to how many of those who assisted 
that day in the procession, yet survive. Mr. Upham 
has not at hand a set of the Annual Registers, or one 
could have looked over the order of parade. The six 
bridemaids are all gone before their mistress, who 
must surely feel something of what I experience, 
when seeing myself surrounded by all strange faces ! 

" Mr. is come home from abroad ; you re- 
member . The D s are returned too ; and 

make me laugh with their oddly expressed fears lest 



PIOZZIANA. 53 

he should write a book concerning the wonders he has 
seen in Italy. One thing he told me would, however, 
be pretty in a book, or out of it. He witnessed the 
procession of catholic slaves liberated at Algiers by 
Lord Exmouih ; and felt, naturally enough, very ten- 
derly affected. When they had carried their acknow- 
ledgments to the foot of the high altar at St. Peter's, 
and had heard mass with that grateful devotion which 
distance and disuse contributed to increase, they re- 
turned, blessing our English people, who stood in two 
long rows, outside the church door ; and heard them 
cry out, vivan i bravi inglesi ! viva la nostra 
santa religione ! Oh, how I should have loved 
those dear Italians ! . . . 

" It would have been but a dull thing to leave 
the world without visiting our great metropolis 
once more, and seeing a capital city, which is 
even now pavi tig with iron 3 and lighting with air! 

I will not seal my letter without telling you 

that Mrs. R has brought four children at a birth 

to her husband, who is seventy-two years old, and a 

grandfather How did dear Mrs. like 

my skin-and-bone country?" 



54 PIOZZIANA. 

Mr. Upham, mentioned in this letter, is generally- 
known and highly respected in Bath and elsewhere. 
He was a great favourite with Mrs. Piozzi, who, in 
speaking of him to me, used to say that no man had 
half so many acquaintances as Mr. U. ; yet numerous 
as they were, he had not, in moral worth, his superior 
among them, and rarely his equal in knowledge, or in 
the modesty which belongs to a man of real merit. 

The queen (Charlotte) did not long outlive her 
bridemaids ; though at the date of this letter she was 
in a tolerably good state of health ; and, as it was 
reported, paid the compliment of a message of inquiry 
to the fruitful lady and her spouse, recorded by 
Mrs. P. 






BRYNBELLA, &c. 

" It would be too cruel if you don't call at Bryn- 

bella coming back. I do wish Mr. to see the 

fossil fish, and the Canahttis we brought from Italy ; 
and the old house of Bachygraig, celebrated by Pen- 
nant, and repaired by my dear Mr. Piozzi at a mon- 



PIOZZIANA. 55 

strous expense, because his little wife was vain of it. 
I have been stung by a dead wasp, it seems ! How 
good you all were to keep the book out of my sight 
so long ! I read it by mere chance three or four days 
ago. What pity that a man who knew so much as I 
have heard this man did, when alive, should choose to 
talk of what he knew nothing at all about, — my for- 
tune and affairs ! 

" When your sect of honest men shall spring up, 
we will not look among such as Mr. Beloe for 
followers." 

I had read, with mingled feelings of mortification 
and disgust, what Mr. Beloe's posthumous publication 
contained against her, and naturally avoided the sub- 
ject in her hearing. Of what he has thought proper 
to say, however, I shall here only observe that it is 
scarcely possible to find in the pages of scandalous 
literature, so great a quantity of malignity and mis- 
representation in so small a compass, as the chapter 
exhibits which the writer has devoted to reflections 
on Mrs. Piozzi. 



56 PIOZZ1ANA. 

ALGIERS. 
Ci I am glad you liked W.'s account of the liberated 
slaves. It is touching; but candour must confess a 
respectful feeling for the Dey, who, as Mr. Finlayson 
informed me, showed all possible activity and courage 
during scenes he little expected to witness ; exposing 
his person to the hottest fire ; holding up the Koran 
to encourage his troops ; and when at last submission 
was found indispensable, thus qualified it by his inter- 
preter : — ' Look ye, gentlemen, God is God, and 
Mahomet is his prophet. We enter not into the 
counsels of the Most High ! It is resolved, and I 
cannot now counteract it, that these men's punish- 
ment, most justly incurred? should at length, as it 
appears, find remission. All praise be to God, all 
honour to his prophet ! To them alone I appeal for 
my conduct, and to them alone do I look for explica- 
tion of this truly inscrutable decree.' I long to break 
prison, as much as the slaves did; but when I tell 
Doctor Gibbes that I take honey and take treacle, 
&c, he says, c you must take another thing, Mrs. 
Piozzi ; you must take — careJ " 



PIOZZIANA. 



57 



WALES. 

" So you liked the scenery in my wild counties of 
Merioneth^ and Caernarvon ? It is very bold and very 
grand ; and looking back upon those mountains from 
Gwindie in old Mona, Mr. Piozzi said, was finer than 
Chamouny ; inasmuch as the ocean contributed to its 
superiority. You lost the Suchnan, however, pro- 
nounced gutturally; and you must go the Penman- 
maur way back, if but to see that one odd sight, my 
favourite. # # # But here is not one word said 
yet concerning the Liverpool Lady, who reads printed 
books by the tips of her fingers ; Miss Mc. Evoy : and 
discerns colours, though stone blind, and although a 
glass is put between her and them ! I never heard 
such wonders ; and well attested (as Autolycus's ballad 
of the fish — forty thousand fathoms above water) by 
seven justices, and a Doctor Bostock ! Why Carraboo 
was nobody to this Miss Mc. Ivor, or Mc. Evoy," 

Miss Mc. Evoy was, it is presumed, one of those 
common cheats, who succeed with the ordinary world, 
because no-hody could suppose that any-bo&y could be 
so astonishingly impudent, &c. ! We help to delude our- 



58 PIOZZIANA. 

selves ; and that was the case in the affair of the female 
rogue, Carraboo, to whom she alludes. An almost in- 
credible instance of knavery on one part, and dupism 
on the other. The pitiful jade who performed the 
character of " Carraboo, Princess of Javasu" was an 
infamous female of low condition, who passed herself 
on the Bath and Bristol public for an Indian Princess, 
&c M and when detected, which she speedily was, 
proved to be a certain Mary Baker, who had been in 
jail, and suffered whipping for theft. Among the vic- 
tims of the deceit she practised, was (but for a day 
or two only) a Bath Physician, well known as a 
gentleman of the greatest respectability and the most 
humane disposition, and distinguished for scientific 
attainments and general talents ! But there is some- 
times a species of refinement in villany displayed 
by adepts, by which it would be almost disgraceful not 
to be deceived. 






PIOZZIANA. 59 



PRINCESS CHARLOTTE, THE QUEEN, &c. 

" Bath, Thursday, Nov. 13, 1817. 

" My dear Mrs. 's kind letter came in a happy 

hour to disengage my thoughts from the current which 
was carrying them away, and to restore them to their 
proper channel, private friendship .... Poor 
dear Lady S. will I fear be affected by this frightful 
catastrophe of the Princess and her child. Every female 
must feel not only afflicted but indignant, at one 
express coming here after another, telling us all how 
charmingly the business was going on. Forty-eight 
hours of agony ! But the farce of life must go on, till 
death drops the curtain, I suppose. 

" My heart feels assured that our Mr. Soden would 
have saved the infant. When he and I meet, our talk 
is of your family; our wishes all for your return. There 
was a nice house too, six doors above mine, the field- 
side of Gay-street, to be had the other day ; but after 
the Queen came, nothing was to be had. And Miss 

, who knows every body's actions and motives, 

or thinks she does, tells me that Mr. 's brother 



60 PIOZZIANA. 

and his lady stopt at Worcester, because they could 
not hope for choice of abode here, while Royalty 
remained. Indeed Bath has been put to an enormous 
expense ; and unless the Queen does come back on 
December 3d, as our inhabitants are taught to hope, 
they may well shut their shops, and mourn ; for they 
will have just cause. My letter is full of mournful 
events, is it not? Yet, no black-edged paper ! There 
is not a sheet to be purchased ; and seven shillings 
were given for the Courier of Monday last, the 10th 
of November, because Jerome Buonaparte is mentioned 
as possessed of a distant hope, at least a looking to the 
throne of Great Britain ! 

" Colonel Barry is scarcely ever seen of late ; and 
when seen, certainly looks ilL" 

This letter was received while myself and family 
were on a visit to relatives in Ireland, where we 
remained for some months ; and thus escaped a winter 
of unexampled changes and tumults in Bath. But 
Mrs. Piozzi was constant in her friendly and enter- 
taining communications ; and always, as in the fore- 
going, touching on persons and occurrences of an 
interesting kind. Her admiration of Mr. Soden, the 



PIOZZIANA. 61 

eminent surgeon, and her confidence in his great 
professional skill, were shared with many another. 
That the precaution which ever distinguishes the 
master in his art, might have preserved the unhappy 
young and royal lady, can scarcely be doubted : but — 
it is now too late to lament ! 

Colonel Barry, several years dead, was a general 
favourite, and our particular friend. In his day, he 
was admired as a man of superior talents, and exten- 
sive information ; and his acquaintance cultivated by 
persons of both sexes, and in the foremost rank of 
society. That magnanimous soldier, and most amiable 
of men, the late Marquis of Hastings, with whom 
Colonel Barry had served in the American war, 
thought highly of him, and loved him as a brother. 

The Colonel was a shrewd and sagacious observer 
of what was passing ; and could see into the probable 
results of human conduct farther than most men. 
One instance of his penetration I will here men- 
tion. In the year 1812, I was sitting with him 
at his apartments in Orange Grove, Bath, when 
the very earliest intimation reached the public of 
Napoleon's projected expedition to Russia; when the 



62 PIOZZIANA. 

Colonel said, " that attempt will some how or other 
be his ruin : probably by his getting too far from his 
resources, and then the climate will destroy him." I 
wrote down this, as I thought, rather rash prediction, 
in Colonel B.'s presence, dated the memorandum, and 
said I should lay it by, and hereafter compare it with 
the event. What that proved, needs not be told ! 



BATH OCCURRENCES. 

" BatL Nov. 13, 1817. 
" After the tumultuous merriment, and the mourn- 
ful depression which have succeeded one another in 
this delirious town, like the hot and cold fits of a 
tremendous fever, how refreshing is the letter of a 
true friend ! . . . . Did not we use to agree that for 
folks in general, (not you and me), the fifth command- 
ment ought to be changed to " honour thy son and 
thy daughter." Well ! and so it ought. Poor old 

Mrs. , mother to the , lay dead in the 

house, which was illuminated with singular gaiety; 
while Mr. Webbe Weston, of the Crescent, whose 



PIOZZIANA. 63 

daughter died a month ago in Italy, wrote under his 
front windows, " this is the house of mourning." 
Two sombre black lamps just showed the words, half 
shaded by a black crape ; and — never a vagabond in 
the town passed by, without respecting the signal of 
distress. Our Doctor Gibbes has had every honour 
paid him ; yet I am not sure that your friendly notice 
of him in my letter, was less welcome than the eulogy 
printed in a Morning Post, which I never could get 
to see. He confesses ....... and also an account 

of the London theatres, the gas-lights, &c, which 
he describes eloquently to me. I took down the first 
book of Paradise Lost, and read him a similar descrip- 
tion of Pandemonium ; our tete-a-tite conversation so 
struck him that he put it into some paper ; I forget 
what ; all names suppressed, of course. Apropos to 
theatres ; we have Mr. Farren here ; nephew to Lady 
Derby, and like her. He played young Mirabel in 
Farquhar's " Inconstant/' very elegantly, and with 
good spirit. — The mischief of distance is the not 
knowing what humour one's friends are in, and what 
impression is made on them by a tale of an occurrence 
which, two hundred miles off, seems of infinite impor- 



64 PIOZZIANA. 

tance ! This town, I am persuaded, feels more than 
any town, because — it was absurdly puffed up. " Hail, 
Bath, the fortunate ! " " Hail, happy Bathonians ! " 
written upon every wall, and lighted up in every gay 
mode, as a transparency : such nonsense did I never 
hear, such frenzy did I never witness; and all ex- 
tinguished in one little week, like the last day of 
carnival at Venice; and then Ash- Wednesday. A 
Turk there (at Venice,) did say to some one who 
repeated it ; 6f These Venetians have been mad these 
last ten days, but the priest rubbed a powder on their 
heads two mornings ago, (meaning the ashes,) and it 
has really brought them to their wits again." 



The above affords a very striking view of Bath at 
a moment of extraordinary excitement. The royal 
visit alluded to by Mrs. P. was undoubtedly designed 
for the double purpose of producing pleasure to the 
illustrious persons who projected it> and benefit to the 
beauteous city in which they intended to sojourn. 
The calamitous event which destroyed the hopes of 
a people, converted the whole region into a scene of 



PIOZZIANA. 65 

disappointment and sorrow — almost, if not altogether, 
unexampled. Everything dismal, is, perhaps, more 
out of place in Bath, than it would be in any other 
town, or district of the empire. The passage in the 
first book of Paradise Lost, is surprisingly descriptive 
of the effect of " gas lighting." 

" From the arched roof 

Pendent by subtle magic, many a row 

Of starry lamps, and blazing cressets fed 

With Naptha and Asphaltus, yielded light 

As from a sky." 

Book i. verse 726. 

And I believe she was the first person who noticed 
the lines of Milton, as prophetic of our modern bril- 
liant invention. Her discernment assisted her to 
anticipate the deservedly high station in public esteem 
of Mr. Farren, as a comedian. When she made the 
remark contained in her letter, the critics, out of 
London, were not, as they now are, unanimous in 
his praise. She was, however, by no means such a 
judge of dramatic performers, as she would have been, 
with less good-nature, and more severity of character. 
But I have never known an individual so fond as she 
was of applauding the slightest pretension to merit of 

F 



66 PIOZZIANA. 

any kind in others. She loved extravagantly to en- 
courage the lowly and the timid ; and could not recon- 
cile herself to the act of finding fault. This disposition, 
as may be supposed, disqualified her for the ungracious 
duties of criticism ; yet she could occasionally apply 
the laws in such cases made and provided, with calm- 
ness and discrimination ; and was a most entertaining 
companion in a theatre. I attended her one evening 
in particular, to witness a performance of Kean's ; and 
was much amused by her remarks on that great but 
unequal actor. Having asked her if he at all reminded 
her of Garrick) her reply w r as favourable : she said — 
" in some respects he does ; he is for ever energetic 
and often natural, which Garrick was always ; and then, 
he is short and sprightly ; and, like Garrick's, his little 
frame seems constantly full of fire." 



LETTER.— BATH GOSSIP. 

" Bath, Friday, Dec. 12, 1817. 
" My dear Mrs. — — determines to be wise, grave, 
and not write idle flimflams to her H. L. P. No 



PIOZZIANA. 67 

matter, — / shall send you a whole list. Flimflam the 

first; a curious story of the of (blanks 

make it still better) ; how she ordered a painter at 
Rome to paint her as the Titian Venus ! ! We must 
not say dressed in the character. It was cold weather, 
and the room necessarily heated by stoves. The man 
suffered cruelly from oppression of the lungs, lately 
injured by a violent cough; and going suddenly out 
into the frosty air, broke a blood-vessel, and died. 

" Flimflam the second. — How Mr. , the 

fine man here at Bath, sends daily presents to the 
Queen of England ; trays of sweetmeats, and pastry 
made by his own cook; setting her Majesty's house- 
hold to laugh at him ! 

" Flimflam the third, is a tale of a shopkeeper in 
Wade's Passage, running away with a woman of 
quality. 

" Flimflam the fourth. — A steady assertion that there 

never was any fortunate youth, nor any Mr. — ; 

that no legacy was left, of any importance ; but that 
the whole was a mere fabrication, to obtain credit for 
a swindler ! 

" What say you now to " les on-dits" of Bath? . . . 

f2 



68 PTOZZIANA. 

Doctor G. does not forget his old friends; and is 
sometimes so little of a courtier as to tell me slyly 
what a pressing forward there is for notice in the 
Pump Room ; all eager to obtain attention for them- 
selves or their progeny ; all disappointed who cannot 
succeed. The Queen visits Bristol to-day, and King's 
Weston. It is heavenly weather for such a frolic! 
And we all hear that her Majesty was enchanted with 
Bailbrook. Her return was really a happy thing for 
this town; but though well disposed (as it appears) 
to gaiety, she has not yet visited the theatre, where 
decorations of an expensive kind were prepared to 
grace her appearance. Southey's " Maid of the Inn " 
is got up as a melo-drama, and very interesting ; but 
plays are out of fashion ; nothing they can do fills the 
house. Have you read the " Welsh Mountaineers" ? 
It amused me of course. Good night ! The sun sets 
now almost behind your old habitation on Queen's 
Parade; when turned about, how I shall watch its 
passing Monmouth Hill, while lengthening days and 
smiling skies will bring you safe home, I hope, to 
your anxiously-expecting 

« H. L. Piozzi." 



PIOZZIANA. 69 

Much of this agreeable letter must, from distance 
of time, &c, pass without comment on my part. I 
think I have heard, but forget my authority, that the 
lady who sat for the portrait of the Titian Venus, was 
one of the sisters of Napoleon Buonaparte. 

The story of " The Fortunate Youth," in Flimflam 
the fourth, proved, not long after the date of her 
letter, to be exactly as she had conjectured, a trick; 
performed, with some success too, on the most gend- 
er o us and high-minded people on earth, and of 
course the most easily deceived — I mean those who 
are called the middle class in England; to whom, 
as well as to the opulent and noble of the nation, 
the tribute of praise and admiration is justly due 
for a readiness to be charitable (as that word is under- 
stood), totally without example in other lands, either 
in our own day, or in antiquity. What governments 
do in other countries, is done by the people in Great 
Britain. Perhaps it is not asserting too much to say, 
that the voluntary contributions for the maintenance 
of public establishments, and the relief of individuals 
in adversity, in London alone, and in any given year, 
exceed in amount the liberalities of the whole conti- 



70 PIOZZIANA. 

nent of Europe, in the same space of time. It is to 
be lamented that the generosity of such a people 
should ever suffer by the arts of the impostor ! 

In one of her letters she says, " I have read with 
pleasure the introductory pages to Pamela ; it would 
not surprise me if I should be seduced to go on 
through the whole work of our dear Richardson." 

On the above passage I cannot help remarking that 
her partiality to the writings of Richardson was, on 
all occasions, proclaimed as here, and I believe it was 
unqualified. She used to say, she " loved Richard- 
son's novels for every reason which can be assigned 
as a ground of partiality." 

They were associated in her mind with the persons 
and occurrences of her early days ; formed a constant 
topic of conversation and admiration on the part of 
Doctor Johnson; and had been studied and extolled 
by many of the most enlightened and fastidious judges 
of literature, and of moral and social interests, of the 
age in which these splendid works first appeared. It 
therefore seems to me rather extraordinary, that any 
one should now be found to treat Richardson's novels 
not only as effusions to be derided for their imbecility, 



PIOZZIANA. 71 

but condemned as pernicious, and to arraign their 
author as a licentious writer. Yet a female, who, in 
the year 1824, published some anecdotes, &c, speaks 
thus of the works in question : — " People of common 
decency began to loathe Pamela." And of Clarissa 
she says, " the coffin and white satin were the license 
for its being still read : the brothel, and beastliness 
conducted to them, and therefore must be a fair way. 
Rousseau was decent compared to Richardson." And 
elsewhere this critical lady adds, "loose writers, among 
whom I do not scruple to number Richardson, not- 
withstanding all his sentimentality." In contrast with 
these sage and delicate observations, it may be worth 
while to recal the declared opinion of another person 
respecting Richardson, and to remember who that 
other was. Doctor Johnson, in a prefatory remark to 
the 97th number of "The Rambler," says of Richard- 
son, that he is one " who has enlarged the knowledge 
of human nature, and taught the passions to move 
at the command of virtue." This number of " The 
Rambler" was written by Richardson, and in these 
words the moralist Johnson announces his gratitude, 
and describes his coadjutor. 



72 PIGZZIANA. 

LETTER.— THE QUEEN, &c. 

" Bath, Dec. 12, 1817. 

6i I still see and feel that the absence of my friends 
has made a long and ugly parenthesis in the last page 
of my long, flat, folio life ! We continue to make a 
bustle here ; that is, the people do who frequent the 
court, and cluster round the queen wherever she goes, 
as the buzzing subjects do about their queen bee. 
We swarm too ; for country folks come in, I am in- 
formed, every market day, for the purpose of seeing 
her drink a glass of water. La reine boit used to be 
a joke when Frenchmen said it, and now we say it 
ourselves. 

To-day she shows herself at Bristol, and would 
have gone with two footmen only, had not sugges- 
tions, wise ones I am sure, arisen from what Doctor 
Gibbes (her physician) said, — of its being possible 
her Majesty might be seriously incommoded in such 
a populous city as Bristol. 

Doctor G. is an admirable being; he has suffered 
no distinctions to diminish his care for an old acquaint- 
ance ! 



FIOZZIANA. 73 

Miss Mc Evoy is coming to Bath, to make us 
believe that she can tell who is in the room by 
feeling- our shadows on the wall ! 

Pray, has our ecclesiastical history reached you? 
it is a very noisy one. The barometer fell in two 
hours from changeable to stormy, and so did the 
people's temper. 

My ill fate forced me into the Octagon, when the 
Bishop of Gloucester preached for the Missionary 
Society. But, good Lord ! how past all endurance 
was the heat ! Think of the squeeze, and the scent 
of new black clothes ! We sate, or stood fixed like 
seeds in a sun-flower; no room to thrust a pin between 
any two ; the impossibility of escape adding terror to 
distress. I think the discourse was eloquent, but 
could not judge; my head was all amazed. Collec- 
tions were not made at the door, otherwise Mr. Crut- 
tenden, who made me go in with his family, said the 
society would have got 50/., each paying only a shil- 
ling. But at the Guildhall, two days after, came the 
archdeacon, my friend Mr. Thomas, and entered his 
protest against the whole proceeding. He was hissed 
home by the Evangelicals, who followed him whooting 



74 PIOZZIANA. 

(sic). The protest, however, is published; and Doc- 
tor Gibbes considers it as a beautiful composition. 

Well, in the midst of these strange events, and 
fearful lookings to the future, Sir Francis Milman's 
(the physician's) son has written a tragedy; and they 
have applied to H. L. P. (as to a pert young hussy), 
for an epilogue. My patron was far away, so I could 
ask no counsel ; but I hope you think I needed none 
for " rejection of such addresses." As nothing but 
kindness and good opinion, however, was expressed, 
my refusal w r as very gentle, though very steady : and 
I heartily wish him success. Adieu: do not let dearest 
Mrs. — believe the flimflams I enclose : two out 
of the four> I fancy, are wholly false; but grave 
people do say them, and expect credit, which I can- 
not give. 

Godwin's new romance pleases nobody : though I 
like the story of a man, who, early crossed in love, 
lives quite alone, treating his servants as mere 
automata, and only desiring to remain undisturbed: 
till — the fall of some planks discovers to him that an 
attorney, and his nephew, were settled in quiet pos- 
session of his spacious mansion, and ample domain; 






PIOZZIANA. 75 

and that his domestics were at the command of those 
men, assisting to keep him up as a confirmed lunatic." 



LETTER.— ROB ROY, FRANKENSTEIN, &c, 

" July, 21, 1818. 
" . . . . Make haste home, dear friends : 

" Still to my faults and follies blind, 
Oh come ; nor study for delays ; 
But keep the certain fact in mind — 
Of shortening life, and lengthening days. 

I last week kept my seventy-eighth birth-day: 
but, unlike other days and dinners, I felt fatigued 
when the company was gone. The sick Miss Allen, 
your next door neighbour in Queen's Parade, is at 
length released. Tell Mr. — — — that in Welch the 
word which means death, means likewise enlargement 
from prison : anghad is the word. The ladies are 
all reading Rob Roy, long waited for, and, in my 
mind, good for little. c Frankenstein' is a filthy 
thing; and ' Mandeville' a dull one: they have their 
admirers, however." 



PI0ZZ1ANA. 



In this brief extract there is a great cast of melan- 
choly, yet something altogether singularly character- 
istic. She seems, by what she says, to have been 
employed in deep and solemn meditation on the awful 
change to which, at seventy-eight, she could not but 
know the near approach. But even in this frame of 
mind, books had not lost their charms for her. Her sen- 
tence on Rob Roy is severe ; but she had read and re- 
flected much; and she knew that mere popularity (often 
the result of newspaper puffing,) was no proof of merit 
in a work of any description. Rob Roy, she was aware, 
exhibited supreme talent; I have again and again 
heard her say so ; yet she must also have been con- 
scious that the book contains much vexatious prolixity, 
divers falsifications of facts, and grammatical solecisms; 
and not a few erroneous views of manners. This she 
must have seen, and indeed did see. But no one, 
whose opinion w T as worthy of attention, could be found 
more prompt than she was to applaud the (in her 
time unknown) author, for being what he unquestion- 
ably was, a man of genius ; the test of which is, his 
having struck into unfrequented paths, and invented a 
new species of writing. In a great measure he surely 



PIOZZIANA. 77 

has done this ; for the historical romances which were 
the predecessors of the " Waverley" race, are of a 
distinct class; as much so almost as the execrable 
love stories commonly called novels. Besides, it 
should be for ever remembered to the honour of Sir 
Walter Scott, that he, for many a year, delighted and 
instructed the whole of, at least, the British world ; 
that he may be deemed nearly the most popular 
writer that ever lived ; yet in his twenty or thirty 
thousand pages, cannot be convicted of having penned 
one paragraph unfriendly to the interests of morals 
and religion. 



LETTER.— THEATRE, BOOKS, &c. 

" Bath, Feby, 4. 1818. 
" The weather has kept me within so long, I lose all 
but the quite prominent stories of the times : for even 

Miss W has been snowed up for this long while ; 

and coaches cannot travel to the parties any how. Mr. 
Conway has had a flaming night of it, however. I 
dared not venture the crowd ; but he must have gained 



78 PfOZZIANA. 

as much as Barry or Mrs. Cibber used to do, in my 
young days : the theatre is rather larger —is it not said 
to be — than old Drury Lane? But then they used 
to build the stage up with scaffolding, for favourites. 

There is a new book come out since I wrote last ; 
or did I mention it to you before? Frankenstein. 
His female readers are divided strangely ; one girl 
told me she was so affected reading it alone, that she 
started up, and rang the bell from agitation of spirits. 
Another lady said, < Lord bless me, what alarmed her, 
I wonder ! it is a rhodomontading story ; I slept over 
it.' But it is, as you observe, according to the frame 
one's mind is in. A petty shop-keeper in Westminster 
once related to me, how she went with many others to 
see the great Duchess of Northumberland's funeral ; 
it took place at night, for the purpose of increasing the 
solemnity ; and she was buried in Henry the Seventh's 
chapel. When at last one lamp alone was left burn- 
ing on the tomb in that immense pile of gothic archi- 
tecture, and the crowd was pushing to get out, Mrs. 
Gardner (that was her name) lost her shoe; and en- 
deavouring to regain it, lost, as it were, the tide of 
company ; and heard the great Abbey-doors close on 



PIOZZIANA. 



her, with a sound that reverberated through all the 
aisles, precluding every possibility of making her case 
known to those without. < Dear, dear ! and what did 
you think, Mrs. Gardner, and what did you do?' 
4 Why, to be sure. Ma'am, I thought I should catch 
a shocking cold ; so I wrapt two handkerchiefs round 
my head and throat ; and crept into a seat in the choir, 
as they call it, where I fell fast asleep ; not without a 
good deal of uneasiness, lest the 'prentice boy — since 
my poor husband's death — should lie a-bed in the 
morning, and shop should be neglected ; till those 
sexton fellows, or whatever you call them, should let 
me get home to breakfast.' If ever I told you this 
* round, unvarnished tale, before, the ladies will recol- 
lect it ; but I think it is not among my potted stories" 



LETTER.-- -FEMALE TEACHERS, &c. 

" Bath, March 27, 1818 
" Next to domestic occurrences, the public events 
now seize one's mind most forcibly : voyages to the 
North Pole, undertaken in a steam-boat ; and a ship 



80 PIOZZIANA. 

dug up in Africa, made wholly of cedar ; (there is a 
plank of it at the Admiralty, affording proofs of the 
fact:) besides, the Danish ambassador's assurances 
that an immense log of mahogany-wood, bearing the 
mark of instruments, was found the other day upon 
East Greenland, are things so new and strange, as 
must give pause to the wisest, and wonder to the 
boldest of those who are looking on with hope of 
seeing more. Bishop Watson's quarto volume of 
attractive egotism amused me whilst in reading; and 
I frequently stopped to reflect how odd it is, that 
people ta Iking always of themselves should annoy 
those who will be entertained by their writing of 
themselves after death ! You may observe that his 
opinion of the intermediate state, coincided with that 
of Doctor Johnson : among the millions who know 
nothing of the matter, perhaps they knew most. I 

would much rather think with Mr. , and we 

are certainly left with permission to form our own 

conjectures. 1 met your friend Mr. Falconer at 

George's on the Parade, one day; and we had such a 
talk about you, and he was so kind, that I grew not 
to be afraid of him at all, before the chat was ended. 



PIOZZIANA. 81 

Miss O'Neill shines away in her profession, we are 
told : and — the Society of Instructresses (at Clifton), 
can scarcely go any further, I fear, without setting 
people either to laugh, or be angry. They come into 
houses unasked ; run down to the kitchen, &c. ; inquire 
of the servants if their wicked and negligent masters 
do not keep them from the knowledge of evangelical 
truths ; tell them how wrong their ladies' conduct is ; 
and exhort them to attend such and such places of 
worship, in despite and defiance of authority so 
exerted; then take their departure, leaving Bibles 
behind them. From whence, if they forbear to ex- 
punge the precepts of St. Paul, both to servants, and 
females in general, I think they leave condemnation 
of their own conduct : professing to instruct openly, 
and exciting dissention between the established ranks 
of life. It is, at best, a dangerous experiment, and 
the good resulting from it must be distant, if it ever 
arrives." 



She had not seen Miss O'Neill when this letter 
was written ; but after we had both witnessed her 

G 



82 PIOZZIANA. 

performance, and conversed on that lady's claims to 
distinction, we agreed in thinking that she had con- 
siderable merit; but that her fame was the result of 
some circumstances not immediately connected with 
her talents, as a first-rate actress. Young and fair, 
she came forth at an hour when a dearth of eminent 
female performers prevailed : enthusiasm lent its aid, 
and she became renowned. " 

Speaking of Miss O'Neill one day, Mrs. Piozzi 
said, " she has a wonderful genius for weeping ; and 
weeping is catching ; and then people do not like to 
think they have been crying for nothing, and so it 
goes on ! " 

As to the Society of Instructresses, it is to be 
hoped they have had their day. They meant well; 
enthusiasts always do ; but seemed not to remember 
that good intentions will not ensure beneficial effects. 
Well-meaning persons of feeble intellects have per- 
petrated ten times more mischief in the world, than 
the wicked ones with sound understandings ; if the 
truly wicked ever have such. 



PIOZZIANA. 83 

LETTER.— THEATRE, BRAHAM, SIDDONS, &c. 

" Bath, June 6, 1818. 

" London fashions render it impossible to go to a 
play: people are just coming out of Hyde Park as 
the curtain draws up ; and the first course is scarcely 
over before the fifth act begins. So, Drury Lane 
shuts, I understand ; and the Opera. 

" We have got Mr. Braham; and shall get Miss 
O'Neill for a few nights : it will be pretty to compare 
her with dear Siddons ; whose every accent, and 
action, in Belvidera, is familiar to my mind, and alive 
in my remembrance. 

" Are you interested about the newly started up 
claimant to our Earldom of Huntingdon? The 
moveables have been long ago disposed of, we are 
informed; and such a man as the late Earl was, I 
have long despaired to see ; and must not expect, 
from a youth bred in rugged life, as this nobleman 
has been. If the tale be true, no novel can compare 
with it for entertainment." 



o2 



84 PIOZZIANA. 

To draw a comparison between Miss O'Neill and 
Mrs. Siddons, would not be a task easily executed. 
There did not appear to me any other similitude be- 
tween them than what arose from their sex, and their 
having devoted themselves to the representation of 
much the same cast of characters on the stage. 

Miss O'Neill was neither tall nor majestic; and her 
face, which was nearly white, wanted force and variety 
of expression. She usually spoke in the same key, 
from the commencement to the conclusion of a pas- 
sage; and though her action was frequently finely 
suited to the sentiment to which it was applied, yet 
she commonly permitted the requisite gesture, look, 
and movement to appear too late, and rather to follow 
than to announce what she had to say. She was also 
not unfrequently too deliberate in her utterance, so 
as to be on the verge of drawling, and to seem rather 
to recite than to personate. 

Mrs. Siddons was, as to her person, in her youthful 
days, of lofty stature, and unusual grandeur of mien ; 
and, though somewhat large of bone, was thin, and 
surprisingly graceful. Her countenance might, with 
strict justice, be called beautiful. It was composed 



PIOZZTANA. 85 

of the finest proportions imaginable; her mouth was 
wonderfully expressive of good sense, sweetness, and 
scorn. Her eyes were brilliant and piercing, and 
could be seen to sparkle or glare at an incredible 
distance on the stage ; as all must recollect, who saw 
her as Lady Macbeth, when she rose from her throne 
at the. solemn supper, and was descending to chide 
her terrified husband. Or when, with swathed jaws, 
and corpse-like aspect, she stalked in her sleep from 
the back of the scene. The effect of her eyes was 
greatly assisted by a power she had of moving her 
eyebrows, and the muscles of her forehead. By her 
countenance alone, she could signify anger, revenge, 
sarcasm, sorrow, pride, and joy, so perfectly, that it 
was impossible to misunderstand her, though she had 
not spoken a word. She so constantly acted the cha- 
racter of great personages in affliction, that, on the 
whole, she had a mournful visage, and an awful tone 
of voice, very detrimental to the success of her comic 
attempts ; and indeed unfriendly to her efforts in the 
less impassioned scenes of tragedy; or when she played 
merely genteel women in middle life. At times, in 
private company, she gave one a notion of a wicked, 



86 PIOZZIANA. 

unhappy Queen, rather than of a purely well-bred 
gentlewoman. 

When I made some such remarks as these to Mrs. 
Piozzi, she said I was partly right; but that her 
friend, Mrs. Siddons, could be infinitely comic when 
she pleased, and was among her intimates; though 
anything but a comedian on the boards. She then 
added a very amusing description of her having, in 
a family party, ordered the parlour-door to be made 
fast, and proceeding to perform most of the part of 
Sir Anthony Absolute, with astonishing spirit and 
pleasantry. 

When I speak of Mrs. Siddons, I refer to what I 
knew of her more than five-and-forty years ago, when 
she was a young woman, in the meridian of her fame, 
and in all the bloom of her matchless endowments. 



LETTER.— FRANKENSTEIN, &c. 

" Bath, June 11, 1818. 
u The House of Peers is shortly to have an Earl 
of Huntingdon, I am told; and there is a remarkable 



PlOZZJANA. 87 

tale attached to the claimant's history, which calls 
people's attention very forcibly ; but perhaps it is all 
Carraboo. For my own part, I feel attracted less and 
less to the world I am quitting ; and if some sudden 
impression does touch my mind, there just remains 
good sense enough to understand that 'tis a silly thing 
to trouble one's head about the adventures related in 
the last inn of so long a journey as mine has been; 
and from such a distance, as the road appears, when 
thinking of my early stages ! No matter, — I have 
lived to see the kaleidoscope, and a very pretty play- 
thing it is ; but those in London are of such brilliancy, 
and such extent of combination, that ours make a 
poor figure in comparison, I find. 

" I see the Quarterly Review just brought in ; the 
articles are entertaining, as Bills of Mortality ; an 
old acquaintance is discovered, and we pause upon his 
character ! The first leaves cut by me shall be the 
dissertation upon that horrid Frankenstein which I 
teased you about. But I shall first make one other 
trial, one other endeavour at thanking you for remem- 
bering me so good-naturedly, and with such tender 
solicitude concerning my health. It cannot be better, 



88 PIOZZIANA. 

I believe, at my age, though often much worse than 
I wish it. When the crippled and exhausted and 
half-stupified poor creatures pass me in their wheel- 
chairs, decent reverence alone prevents my exclaiming 
with the Pharisee, ' God, I thank thee that I am not 
as others are,' &c. 

" Now do write again soon, continuing for me that 
partiality which does so much honour, and, what is 
better, contributes so largely towards keeping me in 
tolerable humour with, dear sir, your ever obliged and 
faithful H. L. Piozzi." 



When she wrote the foregoing, she was more than 
seventy-eight years of age ; and probably such a letter 
altogether was never yet written by any one so old. 
The handwriting is most beautiful ; while in the style, 
all the writer's original character appears in undimin- 
ished vivacity and vigour. 

The story of the claims of Mr. Hans Hastings to 
the Earldom of Huntingdon seems to have greatly 
attracted her notice, and not without cause; it was 
actually the " romance of real life : " but the particu- 
lars are already before the public, and need not be 



PIOZZIANA. 89 

repeated here. The account given by Mr. Bell, the 
barrister, who was chiefly instrumental in bringing 
forward and establishing the pretensions of Lord H., 
forms a well-known and very entertaining volume. 
With respect to Frankenstein, she explained to me 
afterwards why she spoke of that work of genius and 
fancy, as she did, and distinguished it by such harsh- 
ness of epithet. Her explanation was, in fact, highly 
complimentary to the author, for she confessed to me 
that her objections were mostly founded on the cir- 
cumstance of the vast power which the novel exercised 
over her mind. She felt provoked on perceiving herself 
fascinated by a fiction, so wild, so bold, and impro- 
bable. To the richness of the language and the sub- 
lime imagery which embellish the work, she did ample 
justice. 

Having intimated the likelihood of my memoranda 
often proving desultory and unconnected, I need not 
offer an apology for introducing here a remark omitted 
in its place, on Mrs. Piozzi's mention of the name of 
a gentleman in Bath, whom she does me the honour 
to designate as my friend. Mr. Falconer is now 
more correctly described as a physician, and the son 



90 PIOZZIANA. 

of the late Doctor F., than whom society did not pos- 
sess an individual of greater respectability or more 
various merits. He was in his time distinguished, 
and is now remembered, in Bath especially, not only 
for his extensive practice, but as a man of profound 
erudition, of genuine, unostentatious benevolence, and 
of the most unbending dignity of mind. This, which 
is in no degree an exaggerated eulogy, will apply as 
strictly to the learned and excellent man alluded to 
by Mrs, P., and of whom she playfully says she 
scarcely stood in awe. But she told the writer of 
these notes, in speaking of the present Dr. F. one 
day, that she could well understood how any one 
might feel alarmed at the thought of being heed- 
less in the presence of the purest moral rectitude, 
information nearly unlimited, and discernment which 
no foible could escape. 



LETTER.— MISS O'NEILL, &c. 

" Bath, July 6, 1818. 
" The thought of being so remembered, and so 
cared for by , comes smiling to my heart, and 



PIOZZIANA. 91 

sets me off happily on my long journey. Shall I try 
my powers upon your brother at Worcester? If I go 
that way, I will. If nothing happens sooner to bring 
your family on my conversation carpet, as it is ever 
in my mind, a letter on my dressing table at Brynbella 
will at least console me. 

" Miss O'Neill has fascinated all eyes ; no wonder : 
she is very fair, very young, and innocent-looking; 
of gentlest manners in appearance certainly; and lady- 
like to an exactness of imitation. The voice and 
emphasis are not delightful to my old-fashioned ears : 
but all must feel that her action is quite appropriate. 
Where passionate love and melting tenderness are to 
be expressed, she carries criticism quite away. The 
scene with Stukely disappointed me : I hated to see 
indignation degenerate into shrewishness, and hear 
so lovely a creature scold the man in a harsh accent — 
such as you note are hearing in the street ! My 
aristocratic prejudices, too, led me to think she 
under-dressed her characters ; one is used to fancy 
an audience entitled to respect from all public per- 
formers ; and Belvidera's plain black gown, and her 
fine hair twisted up, as the girls do for what they call 



92 PIOZZIANA. 

an old cat's card party, pleased me not. While — the 
men admired even to ecstasy, as perfectly natural, 
that which I believe delighted them chiefly — as it 
was frequent and fashionable. 

" What a brawling election this has been ! My 
best joke was correcting the motto worn on a flag 
belonging to fourteen associated tailors, who went to 
vote for some flourishing fellow, under canopy of the 
words Liberty and Independence : I said let it be 
Men and Measures. And now, if this never was 
in a jest-book, it deserves to be there — does it not? 
Among les bon mots d'une octogenaire ! 

" I leave Mrs. Holroyd surprisingly well indeed. She 
often asks if I hear from you, and always sends love 
and compliments — sincere ones — to your excellent 
mother, (as she calls her), her valued friend." 



There is a great share of point and solid meaning 
in what she says of Miss O'Neill, and of her acting. 
But her censure of the dress worn by that lady in 
Belvidera, is misapplied. 

Black is not only the colour generally preferred in 
Venice; but of itself it tells a tale of sorrow; and 



PIOZZIANA. 93 

every one knows that much of sentiment may be 
conveyed by the hue, as well as the form of raiment, 
on the boards. Besides, Jaffier's fallen fortunes w r ould 
prohibit the slightest approach to finery on the part of 
his sympathising and afflicted wife. 

Anything gaudy in her attire would appear to me 
infinitely more out of place, than even the meanest 
robe negligently thrown on. 

Mrs. Holroyd was the friend of Gibbon, and the 
much loved sister of the late Lord Sheffield. She 
died several years since, at an advanced age ; and was 
one of the most amiable of her sex. She possessed, 
with a temperament of great sensibility, the utmost 
suavity of disposition, the soundest possible under- 
standing, and, as may be supposed from her rank in 
life, highly polished manners. 

In her final illness, she was attended by Sir George 
Gibbes, who told me that her sweetness of disposition 
was unimpaired to the last; and her religious resig- 
nation such, that while he could scarcely refrain from 
tears, she smiled with hope, and said — "Dear Sir, I 
almost dread your professional efforts in my favour, 
for I would not recover, and long to flit away." 



94 piozztana. 

LETTER.— HELEN MARIA WILLIAMS, &c. 

"Brynbella, June 18, 1818. 

" My dearest Madam, 

" Your obliging letter arrived yesterday. I am 
but just come myself, making a slow journey 
of it, and hoping to have seen something like 
your husband at Worcester; but his brother and 
family are residing in a beautiful cottage near Mal- 
vern, and I could not resist sending him a portrait of 
the place. The evening I meant to pass with them I 
wasted in the china warehouse, but was delighted 
that I could send you the picture of the house they 
are inhabiting. 

" Did I ever tell you of a Count Andriani, who dined 
with Mr. Piozzi and me once in Hanover Square? 
Helen Maria Williams met him, and whispered me, 
before dinner, how handsome she thought him. He 
was very showy-looking ; and had made a long tour 
about our British dominions. While the dessert was 
upon the table, I asked him which was finest — Loch 
Lomond or the Lake of Killarney ? < Oh, no com- 
parison/ was his reply; 'the Irish lake is a body of 



PIOZZIANA. 95 

water worth looking at, even by those who, like you 
and I, have lived on the banks of Lago Maggiore, that 
much resembles, and little surpasses it ; the Highland 
beauty is a cold beauty, truly." Helen's Scotch blood 
and national prejudice boiled over in the course of 
this conversation ; and when the ladies retired to the 
drawing-room after dinner, c I was mistaken in that 
man's features,' said she ; c he is not handsome at 
all, when one looks more at him.' Comical enough, 
was it not? Everything gets stupid this hot weather; 
the very grasshoppers are silent; our large rivers, 
Severn and Dee, creep dully and languidly along ; 
whilst the little trout-streams, once so sharp and 
saucy, scarcely cover their slow eels, that keep close 
to the bottom, hiding their heads in mud ! Were 
North- Wales people ever weary of heat before? It 
is a new sensation to that native at least, who boasts 
of yours and Mr. 's friendship ; and whose feel- 
ings to the last, at the last, perhaps after the last in 
this world, will be those of tender and grateful re- 
membrance; so God bless you and yours, and send 
you safe home to your affectionate and obedient ser- 
vant. I am just going to see my curious old house, 



96 PIOZZIANA. 

which Mr. Beloe said dear Piozzi had pulled down. 
The front gate bears his name, as having repaired 
and beautified it." 



There is in Sterne's searchings into the recesses of 
the human heart, nothing better than what she here 
records, in her anecdote of the ingenious Helen Maria 
Williams; so rich a trait of character could not, and, 
as appears, did not lie concealed from her penetration. 

What she says of her visit to her old family man- 
sion, and of the falsity respecting its being pulled 
down, advanced by Mr. Beloe in his posthumous 
volume, reminds me of a communication which Mrs. 
Piozzi took the trouble to make to me, at almost our 
last meeting. It was to this effect, — that Mr. Piozzi, 
with whom, she constantly assured me, every hour of 
her life was happy, had, in compliment to her, gone to 
very heavy expense in refitting the ancient edifice ; 
and that from a sense of grateful feeling to his me- 
mory, she always thought she could not do less than 
accumulate every mark of distinction in her power on 
his near relative, " And this," she added, "exclusively 



piozziana. 97 

of his own intrinsic worth, accounts sufficiently for 
my partiality to Sir John P. Salusbury ; " of whom 
and his amiable lady, she was, with reason, exceed- 
ingly fond. 



LETTER.— VALE OF LLWYDD, &c. 

"Brynbella, 10th. Aug. 1818. 
" Oh, what a beautiful spot I am writing from ; the 
landscape so rich, the prospect so extensive, the sea so 
calm. I grieve we cannot enjoy the view together ; 
we are neither of us very national, yet certainly the 
scenery in both our countries must be preferred to that 
of England ; except in particular districts. France is 
too little intersected to please my fancy ; the eye there 
is wearied before it has done being pleased. 

"We are spoiling the sublimity of this vale of Llywdd; 
cultivating the fine heathy hills, lately so brown and 
solemn, like dressing old, black-robed judges up, in 
green coats and white waistcoats. Sir John S. has 
done better, and planted his mountains to a large 
extent, eighty acres, with fine forest timber. Many 
h 



98 P10ZZIANA. 

friends think it a folly ; but he says, and / say, that, in 
forty years, the wood will be worth as much as the 
estate below. And what signifies tearing men and 
horses to pieces, to cultivate and manure these upper 
regions, which will be more profitable when more in 
character. 'The folly was in forgetting to sow turnips 
among the plantations, which they help to keep clean ; 
and pay labourers besides. Never was seen such a 
harvest ; all our wheat will be in by to-morrow night, 
and oats ready to cut on Monday morning. But — 
while corn is ripening, the people are repining ; a 
spirit of discontent pervades every part of Europe, I 
believe. The labourers' wages at the Cross are twenty- 
one shillings this day, for the week; and when my 
father lived at old Bachygraig,- — the date of which is cut 
in the weather-vane, 1537 ; the house which Mr. Beloe, 
God forgive him, has said that dear Mr. Piozzi pulled 
down, — they were only five shillings ; yet in those days, 
I mean in 1740, or then about, all were well pleased 
and happy, with their oat-bread and butter-milk ; nor 
dreamed of wearing shoes, and eating roast meat, 
except at Christmas and Easter. Those who can 
unriddle this enigma, are better financiers and deeper 



PIOZZIANA. 99 

politicians than I am. Besides that, these fine guinea 
o'week labourers will be treated with good bacon 
dinners every day. My father's hinds, as we called 
them, fed themselves out of their five shillings, and 
were happy, and their cottages clean, and the renters 
willing to keep a pointer for the squire besides. 

What a letter is this ! exclaims dear Mrs. from 

our H. L. P. ! But Solomon says little can be expected 
from those " whose talk is of bullocks ; " and I like to 
enter into the detail of this, my first and last place, 
well enough. Adieu, dear friends ; for a short time, 
thank God ! I wonder where at Bath you will fix 
your residence ? 

" My mansion is in the middle; and it was always 
uphill home from your house to that of, dear sir, yours 
ever, H. L. Piozzi" 



The author of this pleasant letter could not but 
admire the infinite loveliness of the vale from which 
she writes. She possessed indeed, in everything, the 
purest taste ; the result, in all instances, of a perfectly 
sound understanding, acute faculties, and much know- 

h2 



100 PIOZZIANA. 

ledge ; all of which are requisites towards the forma- 
tion of taste. The preference w r hich the coarse and 
uninstructed give to objects disgusting to the man of 
refinement, must seek some other name, for, taste it is 
not. The Vale of Llwydd exhibits a multiplicity of 
nearly matchless features in landscape ; and may justly 
be thought superior to many things of the kind in Swit- 
zerland, and to any thing in Ireland; which, with the 
exception of Killarney, and a portion of Wicklow, has 
to boast of few spots worthy of a traveller's attention. 
Woods are generally wanting; and the hovels in 
which the forlorn natives are compelled to dwell, are 
so foul, sordid, and vile in every respect, as, in con- 
junction with the dismal apparitions of depressed 
heart-broken peasants, crawling about in blue or black 
rags, effect a painful contrast with the rich and smiling 
verdure of their glens, and the peaceful, gently-swell- 
ing hills blooming w r ith heath, by which the bits 
of natural beauty in Ireland are frequently, as it 
were, framed in. Besides, the Irish rivers and moun- 
tain streams have mostly a chocolate colour; and 
the old and massive mansion and abbey of the 
days of the Edwards and Henrys ; the time-tinted 



PI02ZIANA. 101 

village church, with its mantle of ivy ; the gigantic 
remnants of the Hall House, or Baronial Castle, are 
no where to be found. There are castles, as they 
are called ; yet these are anything but picturesque ; 
being chiefly square, dingy, roofless towers, bare of 
foliage, cracked, and tottering; usually of the age of 
Elizabeth ; standing in grim loneliness ; and telling a 
tale of past suspicion, political oppression, and military 
tyranny. Some such fragment was within view of 
Charles Phillips, when he very sweetly apostrophised 
O'Connor's fastness, and his well* beloved native land; 
as the poet fancies it once to have been. 

" Isle of the fair, isle of the free, 
Isle of Love and Loyalty, 

This ruin'd pile is now — like thee." 



The British peasantry, whose condition, one hun- 
dred years ago, Mrs. Piozzi seems to have thought 
comparatively happy, could hardly have been, upon 
the whole, even as good as it is now. Their necessity 
of toiling to live was not less ; their luxuries were not 
so numerous. The social compact between man and 



10'2 PIOZZIANA. 

man, is better understood than it then was ; and edu- 
cation is now more diffused. As to happiness, that 
must have been what it is at present : but little can 
be experienced by those who depend for employment 
and even existence on the will of others, and their own 
labour. 



LETTER.— -DROLL VERSES, &c. 

" Bothy Nov, 1818. 
" With a thousand thanks for the verses : they 
remind me of a Welchman's wit, about a century ago : — 

Alma novem genuit celebres Rhedicina poetas ; 

Bubb, Stubb, Grubb, Crabbe, Trapp, Young, Carey, Tickell, 

Evans. 
Nine celebrated Poets soothe our mother with their song ; 
Tickell and Evans, Carey, Trapp, Bubb, Stubb, Grubb, Crabbe 

and Young." 



The original of this billet I had the gratification of 
presenting, some years since, to Doctor Sigmond, a 
physician well known in London, and distinguished 
for his general worth, the amenity of his manners, 



PIOZZIANA. 103 

his taste, and talents. The Doctor had, at the time, 
entertained a wish to collect the autographs of cele- 
brated persons ; and was, I believe, pleased to possess 
a specimen such as the MS. afforded, not only of 
Mrs. Piozzi's sprightly turn of mind, but of hand- 
writing, and that too of a lady in her seventy-ninth 
year, which has rarely been equalled. Of the Welsh 
Poet, I can give no account ; and as to the translation, 
can only guess that it is hers. 



THE PERSIANS ; MRS. PIOZZI. 

In the autumn of 1818, an invitation from Sir Geo. 
Gibbes, to "meet the Persians at dinner" at his 
house, led to the enjoyment of a very interesting and 
agreeable day. The foreigners alluded to, travelled 
in the train of the Persian Ambassador. One was a 
Median ; the other a native of Persia ; and both were 
men of rank, of various attainments, strong sense, 
finished manners, young, handsome, and cheerful. 

They spoke English fluently ; and presented them- 
selves in their full, rich, eastern garb, with all the 



104 PIOZZIANA. 

quiet elegance of men of true consequence, habituated 
to the world, and its refinements. Without speaking' 
too much, they carefully avoided the provoking vul- 
garity of silence; and in their attentions to the females 
present, they paid them that most flattering compli- 
ment to the sex, of undeviating respect, without 
appearing to condescend. Mrs. Piozzi was of the 
party, and told me afterwards that she had been 
" intensely gratified," Remembering her really bril- 
liant display of conversation ; the winning manners of 
our host and his lady ; the wide intellectual field over 
which we wandered; the lustre of lamp-light trickling 
over the silver and china ornaments of the table ; the 
classic strangeness of the foreigners' raiments ; their 
jet-black, bushy beards, sparkling eyes, and oriental 
complexions ; the result is a most entertaining 
retrospect. 



PIOZZIANA. 105 



LETTER. 

" May 29, 

" Dear Sir, this is how the Epigram stands in my 
book : — 

" * Lumine Aeon dextro, capta est Leonilla sinistro, 
Et poterat forma vincere uterque Deos. 
Blande puer ! Lumen quod habes concede sorori, 
Sic tu csecus Amor, sic erit ilia Venus/ 

" Qusere, would not the epigram have gained in 
value, had the mother and son been represented as 
each of them one-eyed? It would certainly have been 
more classical to have substituted the word parenti 
for sorori; but I am never sure of my prosody. 
One could then have translated it thus : — 

Leonilla said — lend me that eye — to her son, 
Perceiving the boy, like herself, had but one ; 
For then we may manage the matter between us, 
And you'll be blind Cupid, whilst I shall be Venus. 

" The writer of this epigram was Cornelius Amaltheus 
who printed a collection of poems at Amsterdam, in 
1685, A protestant, I believe, though born in Italy; 



106 PIOZZIANA. 

and who parodied in Latin verse, the catechism of the 
Council of Trent. But — who was it made the fol- 
lowing epigram on a man eminent for his literature 
and conversation talents, but accused of drinking? 
Oh, I wish it had been— H. L. P. ! 

Regnat nocte calix, volvuntur biblia mane ; 
Cum Phcebo Bacchus dividit imperium. 

If at evening we fear'd, what we never yet heard, 
That our Phoebus to Bacchus would yield ; 

The morn's brilliant light, put such fancies to flight, 
Showing Genius had won the fair field." 



VERSES. 

Soon after our meeting at this entertainment at 
Sir G. Gibbes's house, she composed the following 
lines, at such leisure moments as were allowed her 
while sitting in a private box in the Bath theatre. 
She sent a copy to the interesting strangers, and gave 
one to me. 

" Mrs. Piozzi presents her best compliments to the 
Persian Noblemen, with good wishes for their safe 
arrival at home ; where 



PIOZZIANA. 107 

Each with a friend, or brother by his side 

Shall feel the varying moments swiftly glide ; 

* Breathe fragrant gales o'er fields of spice that blow, 

And gather fruits unfading as they grow.' 

There, on soft verdure negligently laid, 

Beneath some high Palmetto's graceful shade, 

Should European recollections rise, 

And British beauties flit before your eyes ; 

Let Bath be frequent in the pleasing dream, 

Her fam'd physician, and salubrious stream ; 

Nor wake, till pleasure calls, or power commands, 

To soothe your sovereign's care, or rule his distant lands." 

"Friday, December 4, 1818." 



LINES. 

ON RECEIVING AN EMBROIDERED HANDKERCHIEF FROM 
, JANUARY 1, 1819. 

" What sweet remembrance find we here, 
From taste refln'd, and hearts sincere ! 
Tho' fogs obscure the coming year, 
Your friendship still burns bright and clear : 
While thus my flutt'ring soul you cheer, 
And drive from age its nat'ral fear, 
I'll not think fortune in arrear, 
Or view with dread the distant spear, 
For who could feel that hour severe 
Which from such eyes can hope a tear. 

"H. L. Piozzi." 



108 PIOZZIANA. 

It will be recollected that the writer of the above 

was, at the time of composing them, within a fortnight 

of being seventy-nine years of age. Her lines are in 

answer to the following, sent with the handkerchief. 

" Dear Madam^indly condescend 
T accept this trifle from a friend j 
And in its candid aspect view 
An emblem of her love for you. 
Oh, may it never be applied 
To throbbing brow, or aching side ; 
Nor, witness heaven this wish sincere ! 
Be rais'd to catch the falling tear. 
Were it endow'd with sense to see 
The splendour of its destiny, 
To feel that, being yours, it may 
Yet live in some immortal lay ; 
In story shine, and soar to fame, 
United with your deathless name ; 
Then might it look disdainful down 
On purple robe, or kingly crown." 



LETTER.— ETYMOLOGY. 

" March 15, 1819. 
" Those who write the word Satyr with a Y, says 
Dacier, are of opinion with Hensius, Scaliger, and 
many more, that the Wood- Gods, Fawns, &c, gave 



PIOZZIANA. 109 

name to the poem : 6 parceque les vers etant rudes, 
nes sur le champ, et faits par un peuple encore 
sauvage, et qui ne connoissoit d'autres maitres que la 
joye, et que les vapeurs du vin, ils etoient remplis de 
railleries grossieres, accompagnees de postures et de 
danses, comme les paysans qui sautent lourdement, et 
se raillent par des impromptus grossiers. 

' Fescennina per hunc inventa licentia morem 
Versibus alternis opprobria rustica fudit.' 

" Now all this represents a Welsh Eistifoed exactly, 
which is a sort of half-savage, half-satyrioal game of 
improvisation to the harp, and in use even at this 
hour. The polished Casaubon, however, gave the 

new reading, and said, w T ith dear Mr. , that the 

word satyrus could never have made satyra, but saty- 
rica; and the etymology must therefore be drawn 
from satur, making satura and satira, in allusion to 
the fulness (satiety, I suppose,) of Ceres 9 s salad ; for 
they presented at her games 'un bassin de toutes 
sortes de premices;' and this custom was not un- 
known to the Greeks ; among whom, however, satires 
were unfashionable. Though I know not what else 



110 PIOZZIANA. 

to call the chit-chat dialogue of Theocritus laughing 
at Sicilian gossipry. 

" And now forgive this intrusive foolery, from poor, 
old, superannuated, No. 8, Gay Street." 



LETTER.— WESTON SUPER MARE DESCRIBED. 

" Weston Super Mare, Sunday, July 11, 1819. 
" In the hope that my dear friends have so far con- 
quered their difficulties, as to like a little change in 
the course of their ideas, I sit down, overagainst the 
North- American coast, to tell them in what an odd 
place I have located myself, using the phrase of Cum- 
berland, everything pleasant without, everything most 
wretched within. Doctor Johnson would have said 
that the negative catalogue of comforts in this place 
was of an immeasurable length indeed. No chairs, no 
tables, not a chest of drawers, or bureau, as we call it, 
in the town. No newspaper later than the 3rd of 
July; they put one of the 1st into poor Mr. G.'s hand, 
who pays five guineas per week for a house resembling 
a habitation in Savoy ; yet his lady gives tea-parties, 



PIOZZIANA. Ill 

and asked me ; but my soul disdains it. I live at the 
hotel, have a good room to sit in, a clean bed to sleep 
in, asses' milk to drink in the morning, and more food 
than all my family can consume, for ten pounds a-week ; 
and we are a man, three maids, a baby, and myself; so 
I am best off. Not a book in the place, but one Bible 
and one Paradise Lost ; I have got them, so am best off 
again. But Cocker's Arithmetic would be as great a 
wonder here, as Johnson's present of it was to the wench 
in the Hebrides. Necessary enough, though ; for if you 
purchase a phial of tincture of myrrh for your mouth, 
they make you pay double price, because you took it 
without asking advice of the medical man in the town ! 
Now for the per contra, as we commercial folks say. 
The sea has every beauty ; islets, like St. Helena in 
miniature, or my own country; St. TudwelPs full in 
sight, and good bathing machines; the tides magni- 
ficently high ; and a constant storm, at least ever 
since my arrival ; the roar of which, close to my win- 
dow, lulls me to better sleep than I have enjoyed for 
a long time. And when you direct your looks down 
the Channel, I am told, Newfoundland is the nearest 
point they could repose upon, if strengthened, like 



112 PIOZZIANA. 

Adam's, in the last book of the only volume our place 
possesses. 

" This is Sunday, and we have only prayers; those 
prayers only in the afternoon ; while the population 
is prodigious, and people flocking hither from the 
interior of the country, by way of enjoying our very, 
very sweet air, and fine view. How is Edward ? 
quite well, and the very best boy in England, I trust. 
To divert himself at two years old with a pencil, is 
exceedingly beyond the power of other children; — 
young Bertie Greatheed, and Sir Thomas Lawrence, 
were the earliest artists I ever knew. And now, dear 
Sir, when you have a leisure hour, tell me what the 
world is saying and doing. This little nook never 
sees anything but a donkey-cart, or a sick lady 
mounted on poor Dapple ; and regiments of what I 
call infantry, under seven years old." 



Something momentous to parents, and superintend- 
ents of youth in general, may be gathered from what 
she says of an early display of talent. True genius 
is rare; and most rare is such as was possessed by 



PIOZZIANA. 113 

Lawrence ; who, in fact, owed so much to nature, 
and so little to instruction, as to excite a doubt as to 
the necessity of teaching; which can do nothing for 
the stupid, and not much for plodding assiduity, and 
half-talent. 

Parents would do well to shun an error into which 
they are but too apt to fall; — that of mistaking incli- 
nation for ability; and may rely on it that though 
very clever children should be assisted by masters to the 
utmost, very clever children are rarities ; and that the 
hours of their offspring, and their own money, might 
be much better employed, than in striving to convert 
mediocrity into greatness. The process is, in most 
cases, like teaching a bear to dance ; it is very well, 
when done, for a bear, but after all, very bad dancing, 



LETTER.— ANECDOTE, &c. 

" Weston Super Mare, July 18, 1819. 
"A pompous man — a Mr. Ray — 1 was once ac- 
quainted with, discovered some seditious tracts to have 
been written on French paper, by means not unlike 
those you mention, thirty or thirty-two years ago. I 

i 



114 PIOZZIANA. 

have probably told you, who know all my stories, how, 
when he was named a Prothonotary of some law-court, 
an humble friend came cringing with, ' Sir, I wish you 
joy, Sir/ Seeing his patron stand as if fixed against 
the wall, < Sir, I beg pardon, Sir ; but I thought it was 
proper for me to say, Sir, how glad I was that you are 
become a thermometer.' 

" Anacreon Moore is got into some scrape, is not he ? 
He will want a Mr. Ray to help him out. My news- 
paper, the only one in this place, tells me nothing but 
the Ladies' dresses who went to Carlton House, in 
costumes of different courts ; curious enough ; but 
they who want to quarrel, will quarrel about that. Is 
the Duke of Kent's daughter baptized by the name of 
Charlotte, or is she Alexandrina Victoria? Nobody here 
can tell ; but everybody can blame those who gave 
the poor baby names which no one can speak, or say 
he has ever heard of. 

" We have heavenly weather ; and a cool comet that 
serves to amuse, but cannot much alarm us. The sea 
beautifully broken by two St. Helena-looking rocks, 
which we call the Holmes ; and good savage bathing 
among stones and pebbles; poor machines, which 



PIOZZIANA. 115 

donkeys cannot draw in or out ; and horses I see none ; 
young salmon not a quarter grown, and miniature soles 
about as long as your hand ; none longer : infants 
innumerable for the benefit of salt water dips, which 
they abhor most religiously: — and old stories which 
one has heard forty times told. Our place of meeting 
is at the hotel-door, where we ask how Weston agrees, 
and whether the air is not particularly sweet here ? I 
somehow fancy it is. My fellow-lodgers have been 
diverted by an April-fool trick out of season, played me 
by young S. Six days ago here comes a poor man, 
a labourer, in a smock frock, inquiring for Mrs. Piozzi. 
See her he could not ; for one eye was quite out, and 
the other nearly extinct : hear what she would say to 
him, — impossible ; he was stone deaf. But he could 
tell my Bessy in Welsh, how he had begged Sir John of 
Brynbella, as he called him, to give him two pounds, 
because his honour's good aunt used always to give him 
two pounds on a Whit-Sunday morn. Bessy believes 
that he plagued S. so, that he was at last provoked 
to say, — ' Well, go look for my good aunt ; you will 
find her at Bath.' The wretched man took him au pied 
de lettre, and walked all the way, till hither he came 

i 2 



116 PIOZZIANA. 

for two pounds, sans eyes, sans ears, sans language, — 
or good health. 

" When we had cooled his fever, 1 despatched him 
across the Channel here, into the Principality ; where 
he will do, at least better than in England; having 
lain in the street at Bath, the night before we saw him. 
A good supper was, however, likely to have comforted 
him; but this was a hotel, a cut-finger club; and 
some one who had eyes, snatched his plate from before 
him who had none, and left him to the lamentation 
and derision of our fellow-lodgers and boarders. Such 
is the world, and such are its inhabitants." 



I am unable to recall to memory in what species of 
troubles the celebrated translator of Anacreon was 
involved, at the date of Mrs. Piozzi's letter. Probably 
nothing very formidable, or the world would have 
enlarged on a subject connected, in the smallest 
degree, with one so important in the sphere of genius 
and literature, as Mr. Moore ; who, equally a master 
in prose and verse, holds even a higher place in public 
estimation, and in this age of superior refinement, 






PIOZZIANA. 



117 



than did Pope in his day ; and who, as patriot and 
poet, will be known to nations which are yet to be. 
Her opinion of Moore as a literary character, and a 
man of general talents, was the same as that of 
millions who are familiar with his name ; but she was 
not, I believe, acquainted with the bard ; though the 
humble writer of this can boast of being so; as well 
as of being his fellow-townsman ; and gladly takes 
the present opportunity of saying, that a person of 
such variety of claims to the love of his intimates, 
and the admiration of his country, has rarely existed. 



LETTER.— MRS. SIDDONS, &c. 

" Weston Super Mare. Sunday, 25th July, 1819. 

" Not so the few people I converse with: < they 
apprehend nothing but jollity,' like pretty Perdita 
in the Winter's Tale. A lady twice ha- age, told me 
this morning that the people were choosing a new 
parliament, and that the ladies would be admitted to 
hear their debates. ' The old fashioned churls shut 
us out/ added she, ' but we will have some fun now.' 



118 PIOZZIANA. 

Surely the Gulls, and the Gulls 9 horn-book would be 
more companionable than such charmers. No one 
will believe the nation in danger : poor old Britannia! 
surrounded with fire as she is, till, like famous Madame 
de Blanchard, we see her tumbling from her proud 
height at once : and then the French will cry ' Ah, 
mes amis ! quel beau coup de theatre/ Dear Siddons 
thinks only of her own glory, 'tis plain ; and nothing 
can fill a mind, not quite preoccupied, so full as her 
reading of Macbeth. True does the Courier say, she 
acts the ghost-scene in that play better than Garrick 
did. He bullied the spectre, and appeared to call 
him names ; as, with more propriety, Satan treats 
Death in Milton's poem. Mrs. Siddons, when she has 
said ' hence ! ' recoils into herself, and adds, in a low 
and terrified tone, ' horrible shadow!' then recovering, 
cries out triumphantly — ' unreal, mockery — hence ! ' 
And wisely did Doctor Johnson say that history 
was a magnifying glass; 'for when you read' were 
his words, ' that Rome or Athens was in consterna- 
tion, not a creature was consternated; some went to 
work, others to see the play; and no man ate less 
supper, for all the proscriptions of Caesar, Antony, and 



PIOZZIANA. 119 

Lepidus.' In the year 1780, however, he changed 
his note ; as witness his letters to me, where he 
confesses that everybody was consternated. My asto- 
nishment is, perhaps, greater, that the people of our 
Stock-Exchange at London, should suffer themselves 
to be baffled, or swindled out of near a million of 
money, by babies ; boys of fourteen and fifteen years 
old, who made themselves bears, the papers say, they 
ought to be styled cubs, for no less than £ 900,000. 
Hannah More has written a new book, and the name 
has slipt my memory. Sam Lysons's death displeases 
me ; he picked up such odd things. Indeed, I remem- 
ber many years ago, when we breakfasted with him 
at his chambers, that he showed me a snug corner, as 
he called it, of his library ; and told me it was full of 
all the caricatures, and insolent speeches made on my 
marriage with Mr. Piozzi ! I wonder if he burned 
them ? If he did not, I trust his brother, the clergyman, 
will ; for he is a man with a family, and will not see 
any fun in making enemies. Adieu, dear sir, and 
accept the kindest wishes of your oldest, perhaps 
newest friend, that is as affectionate as your poor 

"H. L. P." 



120 



PIOZZIANA. 



In this letter she alludes to the strange and horrible 
fate which had recently overtaken Madame Blanchard. 
As soon as it was perfectly dark, she had ascended in 
a balloon, from, I think, the gardens of Tivoli in 
Paris; lights were attached to the machine; and 
when at a great height in the air, and while the 
multitudes in the grounds from which she rose, and 
throughout the whole city, to which she was visible, 
were shouting in admiration of the spectacle above 
their heads, the balloon caught fire, and she dropped 
screaming to the earth. It is needless to add, that 
she was destroyed: but one cannot help imagining 
what may have been the direful sensations of the 
hapless woman, when falling in flames from the clouds 
of night, hurrying to inevitable death, and — for the 
last time — hearing the human voice, ascending in 
cries of terror and despair from the crowds below. 
The power of thought is immense ; and, short as were 
the moments allowed her for thinking, we feel that 
she must have thought ; but what, and how much, no 
force of imagination can conceive. 

Her observation on Mrs. Siddons' manner of acting 
the ghost-scene in Macbeth, is undoubtedly just 






PIOZZIANA. 



121 



criticism. How Garrick managed the passage in 
question, she more than insinuates ; but if it was as 
she states, he misconceived the fine sense of the poet, 
or rather lost sight of it altogether. There is much 
more of vigour and beauty of conception, in supposing 
the words "horrible shadow," to be the low murmur- 
ing of terror, than that they should be delivered as 
loud, personal objurgation. 

The words which follow, " unreal mockery," are, in 
Mrs. Piozzi's manuscript, not separated by a comma, 
as I have written them, and as being distinct epithets, 
but as one compound; and probably so they should. 
There is something in the modern reading and punc- 
tuation too precise for Shakspeare. " Unreal mockery" 
is no more an impropriety than the old and authorised 
phrase, "false traitor.'" 

I believe the title of Mrs. H. More's publication, 
in 1819, was " Practical Piety." 

Mr. S. Lysons seems to have been one of a class of 
persons, not so uncommon as they are provoking, 
who, from a baboon-like disposition, and a total want 
of correct feelings, not through absolute depravity of 



122 PIOZZIANA. 

heart, derive pleasure from the act of making the sen- 
sitive and delicate writhe with anguish ! 



LETTER.— SEBASTIAN CABOT, &c. 

" Dear Mr. -'s saying that the further from 

Bath he found himself, it was the further from com- 
fort, gives me persuasion he is returned by now to 
scenes of social life. I could not have believed any 
place in our island so removed from them as I find 
poor Weston Super Mare. When I offered the prin- 
cipal house here a draft on Hammersley and Co. for 
£50, ' Ay, sure,' was the reply ; c but who is Mr. 
Hammersley ? does he live at Bath, or Bristol ? ' He 
would have been but little flattered by the inquiry ! 
Do they not tell some story of a lady, who, thinking 
she should make court to the great Linnceus, said, 
€ Ah ! dear Sir, I believe your name is known all over 
Upsal ; ' Upsala, as they call it. 

" With regard to names, can you tell me why 
we call these little islets here the Holmes? Steep 



PIOZZIANA. 123 

Holmes, Long Holmes, Flat Holmes. It is a Saxon 
word, of course. Holme-don, indeed, seems Scotch : — 

' Oh Douglas ! Hadst thou fought at Holmedon thus, 
I ne'er had triumphed o'er a Scot,' 

says Hotspur; but these pretty, little, odd places, on 
one of which there is a brilliant lighthouse, lighted 
with gas, do not, 

* Like rich and various gems, inlay 
The unadorned bosom of the deep,' 

but afford short pasture for a few muttons, and shelter 
for rabbits innumerable. 

" South Wales lies so temptingly near, that many 
people go thither a pleasuring; James, our man-servant, 
among others. That evening, however, a marine va- 
pour, uncommon, excepting when the atmosphere is 
preternaturally heated, suddenly arose, and took all 
sight from our pleasure-seeking party, even the sight 
of their own danger. Au reste, as the French say, 
no danger threatens us here, either from thundering 
clouds, or fiery reformers. A soft and balmy, though 
a bracing air, blows constantly but mildly from the 



124 PIOZZIANA. 

sea; and here it certainly was that Sebastian Cabot 
stood on the shore, where my little wretched house is 
built, and, looking down the Channel, planned his dis- 
covering voyage to North America, about Newfound- 
land — the first that salutes adventurers who turn 
neither to right hand nor left, for sixteen or seventeen 
days. He was a Venetian pilot, you remember, and 
having brought a little trading vessel safe to Bristol, 
stayed there for twenty years, during which time 
Weston Super Mare was his favourite excursion ; and 
they have preserved his memory in a picture that 
hangs in the Town Hall, Bristol. 

" I picked up much of this conjectural intelligence, 
and tolerably intelligent conjecture too, from a coarse 
man who lives here, I believe. But there is much 
lost by being fastidiously resolved to converse with 
none but conversers. When dear Siddons lived much 
at my house, I used to blame her for too much deli- 
cacy, and said that it was 

* Wisdom at one entrance quite shut out ;' 

but she could not accommodate herself to rough in- 
structors. Apropos to Siddons, I fancy she never 



PIOZZIANA. 125 

read the lines you mention, without recurring to old 
usages. After Churchill's c Rosciad,' Mrs. Pritchard's 
mode of acting Lady Macbeth was looked up to as a 
model; and I have heard her great successor in the 
part profess repeatedly to have had very powerful 
prejudices to contend with, concerning the night-scene; 
and whether these good old usages would permit her 
to take the candle in her own hand ; which, however, 
she persisted in till approbation followed. But, if 
your mode of reciting the lines, ; when she to murder 
whets the tim'rous thane,' ever crossed her mind, 1 
question her daring to introduce it; and the reading 
would have afforded her the best time to try. 

" She read the scene between Malcolm and Macduff^ 
so as to break all our hearts; indeed her power of 
amusing five hundred persons without any additional 
help, was to me a greater proof of superiority over 
common mortals, than any acting of one, or of ten 
characters could bestow. I am here a person of much 
importance; nobody has a newspaper, nobody has a 
smelling-bottle but myself; so I lend them about, and 
look consequentiaL ' Lord Cowper is a great man 
here/ said one, 'because 'tis Florence, and he is not 



126 PIOZZIANA. 

known.' < Why does he not live at Prato then/ said 
Jack Ramsay, a boy about twelve years old; 'he 
would be a greater man still ! ' " 



Why the Holmes are so called, is not quite clear, 
Holmes, in the Saxon, mean hills, the bottoms of 
which are rendered fenny by rivulets. 

Mrs. Piozzi was, I presume, not thoroughly in- 
formed as to Sebastian Cabot ; his father, whose name 
was John, it is said was a foreigner settled in Bristol ; 
but Sebastian himself is claimed as a native of that 
ancient and opulent city, where he is stated to have 
been born about 1477. 

I have forgotten to what she refers in her remark 
on the night-scene in " Macbeth:" possibly to some- 
thing said by me as to the action which, as I conceive 
the poet's meaning to have been, ought to accompany 
the delivery of the words — 

" But screw your courage to the sticking place," &c. 

When the manner of sticking or planting a poniard 
should be imitated. And this reminds me, that we 
once conversed much on the subject of the manner 



PIOZZIANA. P27 

in which Mrs. Siddons sought for the taper, in the 
scene in which Lady M. walks in her sleep ; when 
Mrs. P. seemed to think her right; which, I confess, 
I did not. The great actress used, as it were, to feel 
for the light ; that is, while stalking backwards, and 
keeping her eyes glaring on the house: whereas, I 
have somewhere read, or heard, that the somnambulist 
appears to look steadily at the object in contemplation, 
and, in fact, sees it distinctly. It never was my chance 
to encounter any one walking in sleep ; and very few 
have beheld such an exhibition ; but an ingenious 
friend of mine, and intimate with Mrs. Siddons, told 
me that she once did witness the fact ; and if so, in all 
likelihood took her lesson for the splendid scene in 
question from nature. 

In her reading of the play, we may easily suppose, 
from her fine native understanding, and matchless 
power of expression, that she must have given the 
dialogue between Macduff and Malcolm with won- 
drous effect. 

Though we frequently met subsequently to the 
date of the letter last transcribed, I do not recollect 
that Mrs. P. told me who young Ramsay was, whom 



128 P10ZZIANA. 

she mentions as being at Florence; but the name 
recalls one of her narratives of a Mrs. Ramsay, an 
acquaintance of hers : and, I believe she said, the 
wife of an artist. I happened to speak of a collection 
of Scottish songs, known by the title of Allan Ram- 
say's Lyrics, but in which the author of " the Gentle 
Shepherd" had no concern. It had, I told her, as I 
was informed, its origin in the accident of some young 
men of talent meeting in Edinburgh at a tavern kept 
by one Allan Ramsay, and amusing themselves by 
producing, from time to time, their best attempts at 
lyric poetry, for the entertainment and criticism of 
each other. These effusions were at length arranged 
and published in the name of their Landlord; but have 
often since been received as the work of the Scottish 
Theocritus. She said that for her part she had a suspi- 
cion that the " Gentle Shepherd" was written by a 
person of the name of Thomson ; but that, somehow, 
there was a sort of fatality attending all people called 
Ramsay. " Your story," she observed, " is new to me; 
and now I, in my turn, will tell you a Ramsay history 
of a very different kind." She then related what 
follows; and which may as well be introduced into this 



PIOZZIANA. 129 

portion of my Piozziana, as elsewhere ; though in no 
way appertaining to anything in her letter, except to 
this same name of Ramsay. " A Mrs. Ramsay, whom 
I well knew, was a most extraordinary, steady-minded, 
and gentle-mannered woman, as my tale will show. 
She was extremely ill at night ; and calling her confi- 
dential maid-servant to her bed-side, whispered her — 
6 Jane, I am dying ; but make no noise, because if you 
do you will wake Mr. R. (then sleeping soundly in 
the same room) ; and you know when his slumbers 
are broken he grows nervous, and cannot fall asleep 
again ; but come you in the morning at the usual time, 
when I shall be dead, and he will have had his full 
allowance of rest.' And so saying, died accordingly.'' 
This anecdote cannot be fairly matched by any I have 
to tell. But the transaction nearest to it in point of 
sang froid, and attention to the feelings of others, on 
my records, is what, as I have somewhere read, took 
place between a certain French prince, and a noble- 
man of his court, to whom the former paid a farewell 
visit, when the other was at his last gasp. But though 
his lordship's breath was almost gone, his politeness 
was not : as his address to the royal visitant will 

K 



130 PIOZZTANA. 

witness : " I am penetrated, your Highness, with a 
deep sense of the honour this visit confers on me; 
but — I am at the point of death, and trust you will 
forgive me if I should find myself forced to make a 
few hideous and unseemly grimaces in your august 
presence." 



LETTER.— FEMALE CRICKET-PLAYERS, &c. 

" Weston Super Mare, 25 th Aug. 1819. 

The times do exhibit a frightful foreground, a black 
and cloudy offskip : figures dancing a la ronde, and 
Folly jingling her bells to put them more and more 
out. The odd persuasion which men encourage to 
blind their own eyes, is to me one of the proofs of 
real danger; the present is a mere consequence of 
the past, and presage of the future. Female cricketers 
make room for female Reformers, who will give place to 
Poissardes ; and a bad day it will be for quiet folks, 
when assassination becomes a duty. Mrs. Adams's 
handsome daughter, since dead, told me that she 
asked a pet labourer in their pretty garden near 



PIOZZIANA. 131 

Dublin, if he, too, would join the rebels ? ' I don't 
know, Miss,' replied the fellow ; ' they have sivorn 
me.' — ' Oh ! but dear Andrew, sure you would not 
kill mamma, or me ! what is it they have done to you, 
Andrew?' — ' Why, Miss, they say Tm a Lieutenant, 
but I am only a poor man, as I was afore.' And yet 
this very fellow did betray the family ; and the ladies 
were within half an hour of death ; but that Sir John 
Moore came galloping into Wexford, with two or 
three officers, and a handful of men, crying ' King 
George and the army for ever ! ' and away scampered 
the reformers, throwing themselves into the very river 
for fear. We shall go on, I dare say, to see worse, 
perhaps. I have a next-door neighbour here, a 
superannuated beauty, who is all of my mind ; nor 
could I empty my head of a strong resemblance she 
bore to some one lying back in my memory : till at 
length, hearing some of her family call one another 

B , I asked her if she could forgive my freedom 

in inquiring whether there was any relationship 
between her and the handsome actor of that name, 
first husband to Mrs. K. ' Madam,' was the reply, 
'poor William was my brother.' Now, praise my 

k2 



13t2 PIOZZIANA. 

power of recollection; I never saw that man in my 
life but twice : once in Prince Hal^ and once in Jaffier. 
Conway's acting the first of those characters brought 
him back to my mind ; but B.'s beauty was all in 
countenance; not a towering figure and graceful 
person like Conway, but with a face of semi-celestial 
expression. And he was not my cousin ; but his 
father, Owen Salusbury B., wore my name, and I feel 
quite an interest in this sick lady, whose resemblance 
to her brother must be very strong ; and she says they 
were reckoned like. 

" Cabot and Columbus were very ill used indeed ; and 
America, named after that flourishing fellow Vespucius? 
seems now in no good way, N. or S. Doctor John- 
son's odd remark on the Hebridean Island, bears such 
perfect testimony of its truth, one cannot doubt it an 
instant ; and how comical it is with its grave reference 
to the velocity of light. 

"I mean to come home to Bath as my last residence 
in this world. It is the best place, as you kindly 
observe, for me ; the safest and quietest : and I shall 
lay my life down among friends of God's giving, or my 
own making — as we please to term it; but they are 



fi 



PIOZZIANA. 133 

bestowed by him , call it how we will. Till then, and 

ever, I will call myself, dear Mr. and Mrs. 's 

obliged, and grateful, and faithful " H. L. P." 



She seems, in the above letter, to have taken a 
rather gloomy view of the condition of public affairs 
at home. But she saw deeply into every object of 
her contemplation, and especially into human nature, 
which she knew to be for ever the same. 

The state of the general mind cannot be over 
healthy, where those things happen to which our 
lamented and amiable correspondent alludes. There 
is something preposterous, not to say gross, in women 
playing cricket; it being, indeed, what no female can 
do, unless badly. And were it possible that she 
could excel, or equal any expert male player of that 
athletic game, her superiority would have an effect as 
ridiculous and unnatural as what would be produced 
by seeing a boatswain, or life-guardsman, executing 
needle- work behind a milliner's counter. 

On the like principle, female Reformers are out 
of their place. A distinguished nobleman, writing 
to his relative on the subject of the clerical dress, says 



134 PIOZZIANA. 

that a parson ought not to assume an air of fashion or 
finery in his attire, because he can be at best but half 
a bean ! A lady lies under much the same disability 
with respect to political topics : she can, at most, be 
but half a politician; and had much better not be 
any thing of the kind. 

The story of Andrew, the gardener and rebel, may 
be strictly true. With the labouring classes in Ire- 
land, an oath is a most sacred obligation. A country 
fellow there may be persuaded to take an oath to do 
almost any thing. For instance, to abstain from 
drinking to excess, to kill a benefactor, &c. ; and 
should he make this solemn vow, he will keep it; 
though, to be intoxicated, and to evince his gratitude 
for kindness received, are decidedly among his darling 
pleasures. This disposition to feel the sanctity of a 
covenant with heaven, might, I suspect, be rendered 
instrumental in conferring boundless benefits on himself 
and on his goodly country. Some such beneficial conse- 
quence might possibly arise, were the members of the 
Romish priesthood judiciously and liberally counte- 
nanced. I speak from long and familiar acquaintance 
with the village clergy of the Roman Catholic per- 



PIOZZIANA. 135 

suasion, when I say, that no man in any supposable 
situation in civilised Europe, from a monarch to the 
meanest land proprietor, has such powerful influence 
in the circle in which he moves, as an Irish Parish 
Priest. And I fearlessly add that, generally speaking, 
he is the most laboriously, the most usefully, and the 
most benevolently occupied individual in society. 
This would be proved by a slight survey of some of 
the duties he is required to perform. He is compelled, 
by his calling, to dwell among the naked, the hungry, 
and the despairing. However tender may be his 
heart, his own means are scanty, and he is obliged to 
witness w^oes which, in a worldly sense, he cannot 
mitigate ; and only can soften to the sufferer, by bid- 
ding him not to expect any thing in this life but a 
continuation of wretchedness ; and that his hope must 
be in what he beautifully calls " the meadoivs of ease" 
hereafter. That submission, not amelioration, is his 
portion : that he must accept of penitence and prayer 
in lieu of food and raiment ; that he must toil on ; still 
drink of the waters of bitterness ; and do all this with- 
out a murmur I The man who fills this part, and 
likewise contrives to be confided in as a friend. 



136 PIOZZIANA. 

respected as an adviser, and loved as a parent, (and 
there are few catholic priests of whom more might 
not be said,) were he duly encouraged and assisted 
by government, could surely be made to operate most 
importantly upon the national character. 



LETTER.— THE BISHOP OF MEATH. 

" Weston Super Mare, Aug. 29, 1819, 

. . . " What sweet weather continues to cheer 
us ! And how sincerely do I feel your letters as cheer- 
ing beyond even the smiles of the sun. He has been 
vehement, but is now only warm and comfortable, 
and rapid in his declension. I hope the lady-reformers 
will settle in Libra, and mind their shops again ; and 
weigh out the plums and suet for their puddings, c as 
V the olden time/ Let us keep disease from the 
heart of the nation ! One mob in the metropolis 
would frighten me more than ten at Manchester; 
and they are held down safe for the present. But it 
is all very shocking, make as light of it as we will. 
What changes in our Bath society ! or, are they 



FIOZZIANA. 137 

dreams ? Some seem very black ones ; not fit to be 
shouted perhaps, but whispered into the trumpet (of 
Fame to wit). Give me a hint, dear Sir, a taste 
merely of that stream of calumny which the Bishop 
of Meath said c rolls down the streets of our favourite 
town, taking in a little fresh venom at every house it 
passes.' Adieu ! and make my best regards accept- 
able to your lady and offspring : they are all very dear 
to their affectionate humble servant, 

« H. L. P." 



The Bishop of Meath, mentioned by Mrs. Piozzi, 
was O'Beirn, who has been some years dead. I heard 
the sermon in which he introduced the above-quoted 
passage on calumny. The figure of the stream is a 
happy one ; but only of a piece with all his fine pulpit 
essays. His composition was invariably a rich speci- 
men of the calm and correct in writing. His style, 
without being in the slightest degree gorgeous, was 
never less than elegant; his metaphors were never 
broken or misapplied; every word seemed to drop 
from his pen precisely in its proper place ; and although 
each paragraph was in itself as finished as it could be, 



138 PIOZZIANA. 

he had scarcely an auditor in what is termed a refined 
congregation, who might not have imagined that he 
could have written exactly as the bishop wrote. To 
this style his manner was admirably suited : in his 
action and emphasis he was never theatrical, nor ever 
tame; but, from first to last, abounded in gentle 
earnestness : the whole discourse was in truth so 
engaging, and so full of charms, that people used con- 
stantly to say what a pity it was that he made his 
sermons so short ; whereas he, in fact, never preached 
for less than half an hour at a time. This feeling on 
the part of his hearers was universal, and, no doubt, 
a high compliment to his powers. The effect of what 
he delivered, particularly during his latter years, was 
heightened by his appearance. He wore not a little 
greyish-blue wig, as English prelates do, but long, 
flowing, snow-white locks ; and had a face like Sterne's 
monk, mild, pale, and penetrating; with a small, 
sparkling eye, as brilliant and keen as a viper's ; while 
his voice, one of exquisite modulation, did all that 
loudness and vehemence could have done, without 
ever sounding as if raised to its utmost. He was 
altogether a man of first-rate natural talents, 



PIOZZIANA. 



139 



The vice of calumny, censured by the Bishop, may 
prevail in Bath, but not more so than in other idle 
towns. Besides, in Bath the essence of scandal, the 
malus animus, seems wanting. The good folks there are 
fond— not of detraction, but chattering; and would 
almost as soon speak well as badly of one another. 



LETTER.—MRS. PIOZZFS ACCOUNT OF HER- 
SELF, &c. 

" Weston Super Mare, Sat. Night, Sept. 4, 1819. 

" No indeed, dear Sir, — if I know myself, I am 
not low-spirited, nor disposed to think myself dying ; 
though feelingly assured that if I lose health life 
must follow. At my age there is no time for sickness, 
and accommodations, and dispositions, and dawdling. 
My desire is to leave all straight and smooth behind 
me. But, as the boys say, there is a long account to 
show up ; and one must think of it whether one will or 
not. Johnson said we lived in a besieged town — all 
of us : and that we ought not to slumber at our posts, 
as if the enemy had retired from ,the ground. If so, 



140 PIOZZIANA. 

how much more vigilant should we be — nous autres 
octogenaires ! Our slumbers must be like those of a 
soldier sleeping on the attack. Life is a magic lantern 
certainly ; and I think more so to women than to men, 
who often are placed very early in a profession which 
they follow up regularly, and slide on : with them life 
labitur et labetur almost unconsciously. But — we 
females ! Myself, for example. I passed the first 
twenty years in my father's and uncle's houses ; 
connected with their friends, dwelling-places, and 
acquaintances ; and fancying myself at home among 
them. No such thing : marriage introduced me to a 
new set of figures ; quite new ; nor did I ever see but 
distantly and accidentally any of the old group, or 
their residences, from that day to this ; my mother 
alone excepted. She, indeed, lived near us for nine 
years out of the seventeen I passed under Mr. 
Thrale's protection ; and after wearing his name four 
years longer, another marriage drove that set of 
figures quite away, and I began the world anew, 
with new faces around me, and in new scenes too: 
for Wales was as much out of my usual beat, as Italy ; 
my first husband having only seen enough of zY, to 



PIOZZIANA. 141 

create aversion. I did, however, fancy, when Piozzi 
built a beautiful house on the estate and in the 
country my parents quitted in my early childhood, 
that I was got home again, somehow, though oddly. 
Quite a mistake was that ! Bath is my home ; and 
since I made it such, you, my dear Sir, who have so 
contributed to sweeten it to my taste, are really very 
kind in wishing me to set up my rest there. It is 
the safest and most proper place of abode for me. 

" I thought London was to have run mad last week ; 
bnt the fever of Reform is not yet hot enough. You 
will see that the great men who think they are 
making Hunt and Co. their tools to pull down one 
set of ministers, and put up another set which they 
can command, will themselves at length be used as 
tools by the multitude, w T ho are honest in the avowal 
of their meaning, however absurd. They mean, like 
the wise men of Gotham, to pull the pins out of 
London-bridge, and oil them. And I remember won- 
dering, when a baby, w r hy that was thought so very 
foolish a project; for I doubted not but they wanted 
something, as we say, to be done to them ! Indeed, 
a later adventure showed me how cautiously a work 



142 PI0ZZ1ANA. 

of reformation must be conducted : an old wall we 
wished to repair, down in Denbighshire, was all over- 
grown with ivy : ' cut it away,' said we ; ' but,' 
replied an experienced workman, ' it has grasped 
the stones it loosened at the beginning ; and if we cut 
it away, the whole will drop to pieces : the ivy now 
helps to support that wall to which it once clung for 
support itself.' So, I recollected the more serious 
allegory of the corn and tares, and let the business 
rest. The Octagon Chapel being shut up, as a public 
place, strikes me as comical ! I shall be glad when 
you have either exposed or extinguished that fraudu- 
lent fellow, of whom it appears you have no small 
cause to complain. Those are among the vile vices 
one's heart most abhors, I think. My heart assures 
me your E. will never practise, or submit to such : he 
will be high-minded." 



There is something curious in this letter on the 
subject of Political Reform* The paragraphs, in 
which, by the by, there is a great share of sound 
sense, devoted by her to the state of the nation, 






PIOZZIANA. 143 

though so many years composed, appear as if recently 
written, and since the present agitating question had 
been discussed. 

The shutting up of the Octagon Chapel in Bath 
for two or three weeks, is a circumstance occurring 
annually, and one which ought not to invite a sneer. 
Doctor Gardiner, the Minister of the Chapel, is a 
most regular and scrupulous performer of his duties ; 
and is surely entitled to a few days of relaxation, as 
much as the clergy of the other places of public 
worship, many of which are annually closed, and not 
unfairly so, for a short time, as weH as his Chapel. 

The fraudulent person, who excited her indignation, 
was exposed as she wished; and as the Editor of the 
Bristol Mercury in 1819 will recollect. Mr. Manchee ? 
the conductor of that paper, displayed much spirit^ 
and showed great kindness to the aggrieved on the 
occasion. A man had attempted a literary imposture 
on the Editor of the " Bristol Mercury," a journal in 
great repute, and was speedily detected; being dis- 
covered to possess neither talents nor acquirements of 
any description. In speaking of this absurd transac- 
tion afterwards with Mrs. P., we naturally called to 



144 PIOZZIANA. 

recollection various instances of the kind. Such as 
Lauder's assault on the fame of the immortal John 
Milton, and Doctor Johnson's share in the business, 
and subsequent excusable rage. Nor was Macpher- 
son's simulation of antique Scottish poetry forgotten. 
But both the criminals referred to were men of parts. 
Ireland, too, had cleverness, as he proved, not by his 
pretended imitation of Shakspeare, which does not 
deserve to be called imitation, and is contemptible, 
but by his vindication of himself, which is a very 
entertaining book. From these delinquents we di- 
verged to the ever-memorable affair of Chatterton. 
When I asked her what was Johnson's creed on that 
singular point of controversy, she repeated what she 
had said elsewhere, in reply : — that Johnson to the 
last declared the evidence to be so balanced, as to 
leave the fact of the antiquity and authenticity of 
Rowley's poems doubtful ; but always said he could 
not help thinking that Chatterton must have had a 
coadjutor. Perhaps, had Doctor Johnson lived to 
have read Doctor Sherwen's ingenious " Introductory 
Essay," the herald of an intended publication on 
Chatterton, &c, he would have been inclined to think 



PIOZZIANA. 145 

as the late admirable and venerable Doctor Haring- 
ton, of Bath, told me he did ; that though the so-named 
poems of Rowley might not have been the work of 
Rowley, they could not have been that of the modern, 
unlettered boy, Thomas Chatterton. 



LETTER.— TO MRS. .—TWO YOUNG GEN- 
TLEMEN DROWNED, &c. 

Weston Super Mare, Friday, Sept. 1819, 

" My Dearest Madam, 

"In all parts of the world the same sad < Winter's 
Tale ' seems beginning ; and the plague which Sir 
James Fellowes stopped in Spain, has broken out again 
at Cadiz. Meanwhile, I never saw such heavenly 
weather; sunsets worthy of Cuyp and Claude; and 
sea views fit for Vandervelde. The people, tedious ; 

the things, delightful. But Mr. must have the 

remainder of my paper: my kind wishes and true 
regards — all that is left of your poor H. L« P." 
" My Dear Sir, 

" I am ashamed of the low-spirited tone in which 

L 



146 PIOZZIANA, 

I wrote my scrap to Mrs. . Here was an acci- 
dent happened the other day, which surpassed all 
common cause of sorrow. Mr. Elton, son of Sir 
Abraham E., has lost two very fine young lads, swim- 
ming here among our rocks, three days ago. There 
was no danger in the place; a Newfoundland dog 
would have saved them; and I should scarcely have 
been alarmed for myself where they sunk, God knows 
Bow ! No search has been successful in finding the 
bodies ; and every one seems stunned by the event. 

" With regard to the conspicuous miseries of the 
land we live in, let us thank God that the times we 
see are not like the times we read of. A Regent 
there, in history I mean, would take advantage of the 
mob's delusion, cajole the populace, rival Mr. H. ; 
suffer him, however, and his adherents to destroy the 
Peers and Commons as an intermediate state; pro- 
nounce against their corruption, declare his resolution 
to reign in the hearts of his beloved people; take, with 
their assistance, money from the aristocracy of the 
realm, and rule, without a parliament, despotic ! 

" The bulk of mankind always like that form of 
government best ; the mob can suffer one man's sway 



PIOZZIANA. 147 

willingly; they hate that of five hundred, half of them 
uninformed as themselves, and risen from the ranks. 

" A prince is commonly elegant in his manners; 
often amiable, and able to win over the minds of an 
assembled multitude, which naturally look up to 
pedigree as the most inoffensive cause of preference. 
It is not that he pretends to be wiser, handsomer, or 
stronger than we are : he and his fathers have been 
accustomed to rule ; and so he shall sit in the seat of 
his ancestors. 

" The deficit is a bad thing; but it might be proved, 
perhaps, that these complicated governments are 
more expensive than those where none claim to be 
paid for doing nothing. Dragon a plusieurs queues 
will slip through a hedge, where Dragon a plusieurs 
tetes would stick, and quarrel, and draw different 
ways. 

" Poor, old Mr. L. ! and I am sorry : they were 
kind to me, as you were, when kindness was valuable; 
and never shall my heart feel unaffectionate to their 
house. Doctor G. attends them, I know; but what 
can even dear Doctor G. do, when a man's hand is 
turned black with mortification, I suppose; or with 

l2 



148 PIOZZIANA. 

palsy, which immediately precedes it? They can 
only try to keep him ignorant of his own danger, in 
which attempt I see neither friendship nor good 

sense ; and beg earnestly that you, dear Mr. 

will never practise such deception on 

" Your H. L. P." 



The dreadful domestic calamity mentioned in the 
above letter, attracted more than ordinary notice at 
the time, not only from the common operation of 
human feelings, but the peculiar circumstances of the 
sufferers. 

The two young gentlemen so unhappily lost at 
Weston, were youths of the fairest promise, and 
justly the objects of pride and love to their parents 
and kindred. They were the sons of a gentleman 
admired as a scholar and a man of superior talents, 
and most reputably known in the world of letters as 
the elegant translator of Hesiod, &c. No sorrow 
greater than that which overtook these bereaved 
parents can well be imagined ! According to the 
affecting thought of the Greek philosopher, when the 



PIOZZIANA. 149 

young perish, the year may be said to have lost its 
spring! As Burke finely observes, the order of 
nature seems reversed; they who were looked to 
with confidence as posterity, suddenly stand in the 
place of ancestry ; and those who should have gone 
before, survive to bewail them. The parents des- 
tined to experience this agony, have not only to 
lament the dissolution of the beloved, but the down- 
fall of long-cherished hopes ; fond visions of all that 
was to be, and now can never happen. The victims 
of such a terrible visitation must never more expect 
one day, hardly one hour of unmixed enjoyment. 
It is woe of the deadliest kind, the poignancy of 
which time may mitigate, but cannot remove. 

Mrs. Piozzi's opinion as to the cruelty of keeping 
the sick in ignorance of their danger, may be disputed. 
For my part, I should say that, generally speaking, 
it is the bounden duty of a discreet and tender friend 
to encourage the invalid to the final moment ; and to 
leave him, if possible, at least the consolation of hope. 
In her own case, I certainly should not have complied 
with her injunctions, had I been so unfortunate as to 
have witnessed her dying hour; but I escaped the 



150 PIOZZIANA. 

misery which such a scene as that of her departure 
would have caused, by the accident of leaving Bath, 
just at the time of her being taken ill at Clifton, and 
without being at all aware of her perilous situation. 
That she was so herself, however, appears from what 
has been stated in a foregoing part of these notes. 



LETTER.— UNCERTAINTY OF LIFE ; STEEVENS, 
THE COMMENTATOR, &c. 

" Weston Super Mare, Monday, Oct. 4, 1819. 

" Your letter, dear Sir, has lain too long unan- 
swered. The horrible event of these young men's 
death confined all conversation to one subject; and 
that has been too soon changed for another very 
striking occurrence. You know there is always in 
such a place as this, a family which takes the lead ; 
one man that is looked up to. The magistrate, the 
friend, the general benefactor at Weston, was Colonel 
R., whose son, a gay young fellow, kept a pleasure- 
boat, and used to make water-parties for us in the 
warm weather. These gentlemen, distressed for the 



PIOZZIANA. 151 

loss of their young friends, were out in search of 
them ; and on Thursday, 23d, I met them at a party, 
where the Colonel was cheerful, and boasted his 
prowess in staying so long, ten hours I think, upon 
the water. The man is dead now ! Forty-three years 
old only ; a fine, stout, manly person, and what some 
call very handsome. He caught a cold, and took a 
fever, and this morning died ! Well, 

" Come he slow, or come he fast, 
It is but Death that comes at last. 

Mr. L. lives, I understand ; and that is strange to me ; 
stranger perhaps, than that Colonel R. should die : 
less in the common course of nature. But, he wished 
to live, so I am glad. 

" The Courier tells us C.'s life is in danger; so I 
suppose the young and strong are all to go, and leave 
us octogenarians. A Miss Case is first gone; an old 
acquaintance: we called her bonny Hester; Doctor 
Glass's sister in law : comely, cheerful, buxom ; about 
forty: within very little of a handsome woman; 
agreeable to all. My daughter, Mrs H., has passed 
some time at this neighbourhood; we did not meet. 



152 PIOZZIANA. 

But, she met the elever Messrs. Smith, she says ; and 
one of them was very entertaining. She sent me a 
stanza of a song he has written; but I dare say you 

know it. If Mr. - hears of it, he will claim 

the authorship ! 

* The three black graces, Law, Physick, and Divinity, 
Walk hand in hand along the Strand, humming la poule ; 
Trade quits her counter, Alma Mater her Latinity, 
Proud again, with Mr. Paine, to go to school. 
Should you want advice in law, you'll nothing gain by asking it, 
Your lawyer's not at Westminster — he's busy pas de basquing it ; 
Would you wish a tooth to lose, and go to Wayte for drawing it, 
He cannot possibly attend — he's demi queue de ehating it ; 
Run, neighbours, run ; all London is quadrilling it, 
Order and sobriety are dos a dos.' 

Apropos to Mr. 's hardiesse, it is not new to 

me ; and greater men have practised it. When Wilkes 
and Liberty were at their highest tide, I was bringing 
or losing children every year ; and my studies were 
confined to my nursery; so, it came into my head 
one day to send an infant alphabet to the St. James's 
Chronicle : — 

* A was an Alderman, factious and proud ; 
B was a Bellas that blustered aloud, &c.' 



PIOZZIANA. 153 

" In a week's time Dr. Johnson asked me if I knew 
who wrote it? ' Why, who did write it, Sir?' said 
I. ' Steevens,' was the reply. Some time after that, 
years for aught I know, he mentioned to me Steevens's 
veracity! < No, no;' answered H. L. P., < any 
thing but that;' and told my story ; showing him by 
incontestable proofs that it was mine. Johnson did 
not utter a word, and we never talked about it any 
more. I durst not introduce the subject; but it served 
to hinder S. from visiting at the house : I suppose 
Johnson kept him away. 

" With affectionate regards to dear Mrs. , 

I remain ever your truly obliged and faithful 

« H. L. P. 

" We have left the hotel long ago ; but it is all one 
with regard to the direction. The letters come in 
here at midnight, perversely enough." 



October 11th, 1810, Mrs. P. returned to her house, 
No. 8, Gay Street, Bath. 

The commencement of this last letter is " sicklied 
o'er " with the pale hue of melancholy. The dread of 



L54 PIOZZIANA. 

extinction, i. e. of leaving this state of being, and its 
associations, seems to have laid strong hold on the 
writer's mind. And, after all, nothing can be con- 
ceived more truly formidable than death to a person 
who, like her, possessed, in old age, brilliant intel- 
lectual faculties ; who had seen so much of life in its 
most alluring form, and enjoyed with so keen a relish 
its highest pleasures ! 

Death was never with her a chosen subject, in our 
almost innumerable conversations; and I used some- 
times to conjecture that she shunned it because she 
meditated on it so much and so awfully. 

Shut our eyes to it as we may, it is obvious that the 
apprehension of death occupies the human feelings 
more than any thing else : it is that in which every 
one is interested, and almost all can equally well 
understand. She has indeed said to me, and the 
remark is nearly applicable to herself, that Johnson 
was afraid of dying, yet did not fear like a vulgar 
coward, but because his abundant learning, and the 
vast magnitude of his conceptions, assisted him to take 
a more expanded view fhan ordinary persons could do, 
of a question so important. 



PIOZZIANA. 155 

She, I am satisfied, reflected profoundly on death, 
also ; but in this letter we see how she gets back to 
" this vile world" and its trifles ; and tabes refuge 
from sadness in the wit and pleasantry of one of the 
authors of the " Rejected Addresses." The lively 
stanza she quotes is in every body's recollection. 

The story of Steevens and her " infant alphabet,' ' 
is sufficiently singular"; and seems to be combined with 
some misconception on the part of the fair authoress 
of the rhymes. S. was a man of extraordinary abili- 
ties, and could have written the " Alphabet," or a 
better thing than it probably was: and although 
capable of mean acts, as Mrs. Hawkins avers, yet 
most likely the claiming of Mrs. Piozzi's lines for him, 
was rather Johnson's doing than his own. I know 
nothing of the particulars adverted to by her, nor have 
I ever seen more of the " infant alphabet " than the 
couplet she transcribes. 






156 PIOZZIANA. 



LETTER.— ABSURDITIES OF PROTESTANT 
CONGREGATIONS. 

" Saturday Night, 
"Nov. 27, 1819. 

" I wish, my dear Sir, I liked the state of my own 
health, as well as I liked your ' Letter ;' (addressed 
to the Bishop of Bath and Wells ;) it was much 
wanted : a strange thing to confess in our enlightened 
country. But, I remember in Italy, when Mr. Chap- 
pelow saw the good women on their knees, praying 
most devoutly as some show passed by (which was by 
no means connected with religion ) ; he whispered one, 
6 What are these fools muttering about, as if their 
salvation depended on it ? We have no such igno- 
rance in England ! ' — ' Nay, Sir,' was my reply, 
' the same ignorance is exhibited all over England, 
where we are exhorting, commanding, aye, and 
absolving one another every Sunday of our lives : and 
that species of ignorance you shall not find in Italy, 
where the priest takes care to teach at least the sacred- 
ness of his own functions, whatever he leaves untaught.' 
But, dear Sir, you will find these follies increase 



PIOZZIANA. 157 

and not diminish, where every body teaches, as in 
Bath and London, and nobody learns. Where old 
women usurp the clerical profession, and catechise the 
poor children, without any form of sound words, to 
the destruction of St. Paul's command, ' let every 
thing be done decently and in order.' I hope the 
pamphlet will be a favourite." 



The " Letter " which she took the trouble of read- 
ing, was a small pamphlet, published at Bath, in 1819, 
and addressed for form's sake, but most respectfully, to 
the then Bishop of Bath and Wells ; by whom it was, 
of course, never seen ; and if it had, would probably 
have been thrown aside, as beneath notice. Yet 
certainly the object it had in view was reasonable ; 
that of exciting the attention of the diocesan, and 
others, to the manner in which portions of the church- 
service are usually delivered by the officiating clergy- 
man ; and the absurd manner in which congregations 
take part, during the performance of the sacred duties. 
What was strongly censured in the pamphlet, and the 
passage to which Mrs. P. particularly points, was an 



158 PIOZZIANA. 

incredibly silly practice, witnessed at all times of public 
prayer, when the clergyman pronounces the "Exhorta- 
tion.'' This address of the priest to the people, can- 
not be mistaken, by any one possessing the smallest 
share of common sense, for an appeal to the Deity. 
Yet is it carefully and piously repeated by his hearers ; 
who with upturned eyes, and clasped hands, may be 
seen and heard going over the words " dearly beloved 
brethren, &c., ,, and " wherefore I pray and beseech 
you." Either they who thus recite words directed to 
themselves, as if words of thanksgiving or prayer, are 
fools; or so shamefully regardless of what they are 
doing, and in whose sacred temple they stand, as not 
to affix any sense to the expressions they employ, or 
listen to. Repeating (as is constantly practised), the 
words of the decalogue, is equally childish and ridicu- 
lous, or, indeed, worse. 

Not to think on such occasions is a mockery, to 
which it is the duty of the clergy to put a stop. They, 
it is to be hoped, are in earnest, and should instruct 
their flocks in the necessity of being in earnest 
likewise. 



PIOZZIANA. 159 



LETTER.— MRS. PIOZZFS FETE. 

" My dear Madam, your H. L. P. is thrown into 
perfect despair by the arrival of Lady Ramsay, to say 
how we have all been long engaged to meet her at 
Sir Alexander Grant's dinner, on Thursday, 11th. 
I showed her your kind letter; but she says, and 
what is worse, says truly, that her uncle's card is of 
a prior date; and I said yes to it, on the very day Sir 
John and Lady Salusbury knocked at my door, and 
put everybody but themselves out of my head. Then 
came the fete, and put everything out of my head : 
and now, dearest lady, what will become of your dis- 
tressed H. L. P.?" 

" Sunday, Feb. 6, 1820." 



The fete, which she says put everything out of 
her head, was a very memorable event in our annals 
of enjoyment at Bath. It took place on January 27, 
1820; and was a most sumptuous entertainment given 
by her at the Lower Assembly Rooms, to a company of 
between seven and eight hundred ladies and gentle- 



160 PIOZZIANA. 

men; whom, assisted by Sir John and Lady Salis- 
bury, she received with a degree of ease, cheerfulness, 
and polite hospitality, peculiarly her own. The occa- 
sion upon which this display of elegance and liberal 
expenditure was made, was the completion of this 
fascinating and extraordinary woman's eightieth year. 
The festivity began with a ball, and concluded with 
a costly and superbly arranged banquet. At the 
latter, and at the top of the central table of three, our 
amiable hostess presided, supported by a renowned 
British Admiral of the highest rank on each side. 
And, if anything could exceed the magnificent show 
of the assemblage, glittering in the gayest attire, and 
composed of all that Bath contained of exalted station, 
talent, genius, youth and beauty, the profusion of 
delicacies, lights, and jewelry; it was the gracious and 
queen-like deportment of Mrs. Piozzi herself. Her 
flow of disciplined animation seemed inexhaustible; 
and her strength equally so : for, she had previously 
opened the ball with Sir John Salusbury, and danced 
with astonishing elasticity, and with all the true air 
of dignity which might have been expected from one 
of the best bred females in society. 



PIOZZIANA. 161 

I told her, and with perfect sincerity, that altogether 
such a victory of mind over matter, I had never wit- 
nessed; and she seemed pleased with the implied 
eulogy : but her mental qualities and bodily frame 
were, in every respect, out of the ordinary course. 

In the month of July, 1820, she more than once 
walked from her house, 36, York Crescent, to the Mall, 
at Clifton, to visit us ; a long and toilsome distance on 
a hot day, and such as any one would have thought 
oppressive. When I spoke of fatigue, and of my 
fears that she had done too much, she said, " No ; 
this sort of thing is greatly in the mind ; and I am 
almost tempted to say the same of growing old at all ; 
especially as it regards three of the usual concomitants 
of age ; viz. laziness, defective sight, and ill-temper !" 
" Sluggishness of soul," she used to observe, " and 
acrimony of disposition, commonly begin before the 
encroachments of infirmity ; they creep upon us insi- 
diously; and it is the business of a rational being to 
watch these beginnings, and counteract them." Her 
own power of sight was surprising: when past eighty, 
she has several times described minute features in the 
distant landscape we were viewing; or touches in a 

M 



162 PIOZZIANA. 

painting, or engraving, which even sharp -sighted 
young persons failed to discover, and could only 
perceive when pointed out by her. 

When I attempted to argue, and cried, " Dear 
Madam, surely we cannot prevent the decay of 
sight ! " she would answer, " Perhaps not quite ; but 
we may do much; every person, when about fifty, 
suffers an enfeeblement of the eyes; let not this be 
indulged, and let spectacles be resisted for a year or 
two, and the organ will, in great measure, retrieve its 
strength; and, depend upon it, accuracy of seeing 
means, very often, accuracy of looking, and, as 
Johnson has said, is much influenced by the under- 
standing." 

These were among her half-sportive, half-serious 
sallies ; all of which I would gladly register, were it 
in my power, for admirable good sense invariably 
mingled with her pleasantry. Her more premeditated 
opinions, remarks, and inquiries made a deeper im- 
pression on my memory ; and of these I shall intro- 
duce a few, in this the concluding portion of my 
memoranda, feeling reluctant to take leave of the 
subject of them, or to lose any thing associated with 



PIOZZIANA. 163 

my recollection of one, to whom I am indebted for 
so many delicious hours of life. 



ECLIPSE OF THE SUN. 

Of this phenomenon, I copy the astronomical re- 
cord as it lies before me : — 

" September 7, 1820.— The sun eclipsed visible. 
Beginning 24 minutes past noon. Greatest obscura- 
tion, 1 hour 53 minutes. End 3 hours 17 minutes. 
Digits eclipsed 10 degrees 27 minutes. This eclipse 
annular in the Shetland Isles, and at Hanover, Frank- 
fort, Munich, Venice, and Naples." 



Relative to this eclipse, Mrs. Piozzi mentioned a 
singular fact. She said that when very young, and 
admiring a solar eclipse which occurred at the time, 
a medical gentleman and a man of science, the inti- 
mate friend of her family, was present, and observed 
that, from her general form, he thought she would be 
long lived, and might possibly survive to witness an 
eclipse of the sun, which would happen when she 

m 2 



164 PIOZZIANA. 

would be about fourscore years of age; "and lo!" 
she added, " here is the identical eclipse foretold, and 
I have survived to see it ! " 

The effect of this phenomenon was extremely fine. 
At twelve o'clock, the day was brilliant and warm; 
and in about an hour and a half from that time, Bath 
was wrapped in chilly twilight, or much such light, if 
it can be so called, as remains between nine and ten 
in midsummer. The small birds retired to housetops, 
battlements, and the boughs of trees, and seemed to 
sit dismayed ; and the fearful and superstitious among 
the poorer classes appeared awe-struck, and had re- 
course to prayer. It was easy to conceive what 
might have been the feelings of uncultivated men, 
or of a whole people in a ruder age, on beholding 
this solemn but natural occurrence in the planetary 
system. 

During the greatest obscuration, the sun looked 
somewhat thus f| 

KEMBLE. 

" Thursday Night, ISth Jan, 1817. 

"I will not go to the play; I am not half well 
myself; medicine will be better for me than Corio- 



PIOZZIANA. 165 

lanus to-morrow. K. has acted King Lear to empty 
benches," 



I cannot, in strictness, say that I saw Kemble 
play Lear at the Bath theatre, to what might be 
termed a poor house ; but I witnessed his Lear more 
than once, when there was not such an attendance 
-as the effort deserved ; for though not a part in which 
he excelled, there were portions of it extremely striking 
and beautiful ; Kemble could not play any tragic cha- 
racter badly. Still, in his hands, Lear was an unequal 
personation ; he seemed to aim at a contrast between 
the beginning and the end; commencing as a tranquil, 
venerable monarch, made shortly after justifiably angry 
by the conduct of Cordelia ; growing more and more 
seriously violent, as his vexations increased; and at 
last losing his wits from the overwhelming pressure of 
his sorrows. 

Young's Lear struck me as being more judiciously 
conceived; and altogether always appeared to me a 
finer portrait. From the instant that he first tottered 
out upon the stage, he intimated by his aspect, voice, 
gait, and the quick clutching of his hands, that Lear 



166 PIOZZIANA. 

was one of those naturally irritable men, whom the 
slightest contradiction would urge into wildness ; and 
who was already a peevish, half dotard, before the 
capricious surrender of his dominions. Young's art 
then consisted in doing what I suspect Shakspeare 
intended ; in making Lear an object of the deepest 
commiseration, — not as a dethroned, deserted king, 
but as a wretched father, kindly, feeble, old, and 
nearly friendless ; and oppressed because he was such, 
by the malignity of his persecutors. 



MRS. PIOZZI'S AGE ; KEMBLE ; &c. 

"Jan, 15, 1817. 

"I am not well ; nor, I fear, going to be well directly ; 
but, ' be it as it may,' to-morrow is my seventy-sixth 
anniversary, and I ought to be happy and thankful. 

" The tick of the clock before Morton's execution is 
certainly impressive ; and Claverhouse's conversation 
afterwards concerning death, and his own hoped-for 
exit, comes in as a happy contrast. My good wishes 
will always follow Kemble ; I have spent such pleasant 



PIOZZIANA. 167 

hours in his company. Poor fellow ! But — once 

again ; be it as it may ' I must think, and think 

seriously about 

« Your obliged and faithful H. L. P." 



In this letter of January 15, 1817, she marks 
her birth-day, and her advanced age, seventy- 
seven; and much about that time, I recollect her 
showing me a valuable china bowl, in the inside of 
which was pasted a slip of paper, and on it written, 
" With this bowl Hester Lynch Salusbury, was 
baptized, 1740." She was born on the 16th, or, as 
according to the change of style, we should now 
reckon, the 27th of January, 1741 ; and was certainly, 
as my readers must admit, a very extraordinary 
instance of a person of great mental endowments pre- 
serving her faculties unimpaired, beyond the period 
usually allotted for their continuance. 

In speaking one day of the decay of the mind, she 
said she did not quite believe the fact; that is, she 
doubted whether or not dotage could steal upon one 
of a powerful intellect. I instanced Marlborough and 
Swift, and added what is repeated of the latter, who, 



168 PIOZZ1ANA. 

when told that there was, somewhere, a very fine, 
intelligent old gentleman, worth going to see and 
converse with, replied, " No, there can be no such 
person ; had he possessed any great share of under- 
standing, it would have been worn out long before 
this!" She refused to listen to this plea, observing 
that Marlborough and Swift were probably, by a 
sudden occurrence of distemper, converted into idiots, 
which she admitted to be possible. But as to a mind 
of great original power, highly improved by cultiva- 
tion, growing gradually imbecile, she almost thought 
it could not be. 



MRS. PIOZZI ILL. 

" Monday, April 14, 1817. 

. ..." I am better than I was yesterday, though 
the obituary came into my head again at three o'clock 
this morning. I think your promise to take care of 
it would do good to yours, while 

« H. L. P." 

Here she employs the word obituary emphatically; 
and in doing so, affords me, I trust, an excuse for the 



PIOZZIANA. 169 

present attempt to pay a tribute, however humble, to 
her memory. 

At the time of her lamented death, I was not only 
absent from the place where it occurred, but was out 
of England, and was thus prevented from attending to 
what, I conceive, must have been her particular wish. 
Her obituary article for the public journals was 
written, as I have elsewhere stated, by her friend 
Mrs. Pennington, of Clifton, a very ingenious and 
well-informed woman, repeatedly mentioned in Anna 
Seward's correspondence as the beautiful and agree- 
able Sophia Weston. 



DR. JOHNSON'S IRENE. 
" These are the lines I thought Dr. Johnson must 
have had in his head, when finishing the second act of 
Irene : — 

" Prepare ye now for bolder deeds, 

And know the prophet will reward your valour. 
Think that we all to certain triumph move ; 
Who falls in fight, will meet the blest above. 
There in the gardens of eternal spring, 
While birds of Paradise around you sing, 



170 PIOZZIANA. 

Each with his blooming beauty by his side 
Shall drink rich wines that in full rivers glide ; 
Breathe fragrant gales o'er fields of spice that blow, 
And gather fruits immortal, as they grow : 
Ecstatic bliss shall your whole powers employ, 
And ev'ry sense be lost in ev'ry joy." 

Hughes's Siege of Damascus. 

Our Doctor has, however, improved upon them ; if 
the last four lines can admit of improvement. 

If you have not Irene (turn over), and read Maho- 
met's Address to the Lady : — 

" If greatness please thee, mount th' imperial seat ; 
If pleasure charm thee, view this soft retreat : 
Here, ev'ry warbler of the sky shall sing, 
Here, ev'ry fragrance breathe of ev'ry spring. 
To deck these bow'rs each region shall combine, 
And ev'n our prophet's gardens envy thine : 
Empire and love shall share the blissful day, 
And varied life steal unperceived away." 



EDMUND BURKE, &c. 



"Burke, Pitt, and Fox, were three great men, 
but utterly dissimilar. I knew neither of the latter 
personally, but Burke intimately; and if he deserved, 



PIOZZIANA. 171 



as no doubt he did, his public reputation only half as 
much as he did his social pre-eminence, he must have 
been a prodigy; for in private circles he had no equal," 



In conformity to what she writes of Burke, she 
invariably spoke of him as a man of singularly 
agreeable manners: gentle, almost bashful, totally 
devoid of affectation, especially of the affectation of 
not being affected ; either wanting in, or cautiously 
shunning humour, but abounding in delicate wit, and 
deep knowledge, literally, on every subject; and 
possessing an inexhaustible stock of the most ap- 
propriate expressions, distant alike from Johnson's 
pedantic language, or the lax prating in which Gold- 
smith indulged. 

Unlike Mrs. Piozzi, I had witnessed their public 
efforts, but had not any personal acquaintance with 
two of the eminent men she refers to. They were 
leaders whose transcendent talents will render them 
objects of admiration to the human race, when not 
only they who have known, and they who have seen 
them, but their portraits and statues will have moul- 
dered into dust. 



17*2 PIOZZIANA. 

In the spring of the year 1793, I remember seeing 
and hearing Edmund Burke speak a very long speech 
in Parliament; and can describe him as if he now 
stood before me. He was a tall and rather meagre 
man ; and had somewhat stiff and uncouth in his air, 
probably through want of the habits of politeness; 
for in early life he had not kept the highest company. 

At the time I refer to, and when pointed out to 
strangers in the streets, as a renowned orator, states- 
man, and writer, he usually wore a blue coat, scarlet 
waistcoat, brown breeches, and grey worsted stock- 
ings ; and a wig of fair curly hair, made to look 
natural. He also commonly used spectacles; so that 
it is not easy to describe his face. But I noticed 
that he had many wrinkles, and those more of thought 
than age. He had a double chin, as it is termed; 
large nostrils, a rather long, irregular nose, and a 
wide, and as it were, a loose mouth, such as many 
public speakers have. His speeches were always 
worth listening to; though his attitude was often 
unbecoming, as he would keep one hand in his 
waistcoat pocket, and the other frequently in his 
bosom, and swing his body from side to side, while 



PIOZZIANA. 



173 



his feet were fixed to one spot. Being an Irishman, 
he not only spoke with an Irish accent, which might 
be excused, but with an Irish pronunciation, for 
which there is no excuse ; because English people of 
good education must needs know how to pronounce 
their own language ; and when an Irishman of dis- 
cernment and talents speaks differently, it must be 
because he chooses to do so, which is ridiculous. In 
spite of these objections, such were the charms of his 
eloquence, his words flowed in so grand a torrent, 
and he so abounded in happy metaphor and well- 
applied learning, that although I have heard him for 
several hours together, I do not remember being 
conscious of weariness or impatience, while he was 
on his legs. 

Fox I first saw in the House of Commons in April, 
1793; and knew who he was, as he advanced to take 
his seat on one side of the table, from the numberless 
caricatures of him which had long amused the idle 
world, in the shop windows. He was a man of middle 
height, fat and strongly formed. His skin was as 
yellow as that of Charles II, ; he had also a very 
black, thickly-set beard, and large, bushy eyebrows, 



174 PIOZZIANA. 

which, pointing upwards, towards the centre of his 
forehead, gave him the air of what he really was, a 
man of great sharpness of understanding, much good 
nature, irrepressible ardour, and many wild passions. 
When speaking in parliament, or otherwise in public, 
his action, and manner of standing, were sturdy and 
ungraceful, and his voice was shrill and harsh. He 
was endowed with most splendid abilities, and his 
labours as a statesman sat lightly on him, and had 
little or no effect upon his temper, which was naturally 
daring and gay. That he could be merry on serious 
occasions, is proved by various stories told of him ; 
and particularly by the circumstances attending his 
duel with Mr. Adam, w T ho shot Fox in the breast; 
when, instead of appearing alarmed, he smiled and 
said, he perceived it to be true that " Adam had 
power over every beast of the field." His friend in 
the combat was Mr. Hare. This actually did happen, 
which is more than can be said of things related in 
other old stories. As to what Mrs. Piozzi says, in 
writing of him, respecting his resembling Demos- 
thenes, as far as dealing in close argument, in vehe- 
mence, and sarcasm, his eloquence was like that of 



PIOZZIANA. 175 

the renowned Athenian : but, when not highly ex- 
cited, he was very heedless in the grammatical con- 
struction of his sentences; and in these instances often 
deeply indebted to the reporter. 

When thoroughly warmed, he seemed inspired; 
and then, nothing in oratory could exceed the correct- 
ness of the passages he delivered, or equal his tre- 
mendous impetuosity. 

Pitt was a tall thin man, of a fair skin, and with 
rather an effeminate gait. He had light-coloured 
hair, and grey, watery eyes, and a projecting sharp- 
pointed nose, a little turned up. His forehead, in 
the part nearest to his eyebrows, came far out, as 
may be seen in his statues and busts; and to those 
who are observers of human faces, gave the notion of 
his being a man of the greatest possible clearness of 
thought, and firmness of character; and such he proved 
himself on every occasion. His manner of speaking 
in the House (and I seldom heard him except in 
parliament) was very lordly and commanding; he 
generally stretched forth his right arm to its utmost 
length, kept his left hand on his hip, or on the table, 
near which he usually stood, and his feet at a proper 



176 PIOZZIANA. 

distance from each other, and spoke deliberately, like 
a person reading from a well-written book, and in a 
voice as loud and deep almost as a bell. 

These sketches of the persons in question were 
shown to Mrs. Piozzi, with one of Richard Brinsley 
Sheridan subjoined; and she said they were rugged 
outlines, but gave her an idea of the men delineated. 

Sheridan was above the middle height; his limbs 
were well formed, but rather heavy, and his shoulders 
somewhat round; he had one leg perceptibly larger 
than the other. His face, in the lower part, was fat, 
and all over too rosy for a very temperate or very 
discreet man. His eyes were most remarkable — 
large, of a dark colour, and shining, as if fire came 
from them; when near and immediately in front of 
him, few could bear to look steadily at his counte- 
nance. In pronouncing his orations, he had endless 
grace and variety of action; using both arms with 
such propriety, that by their movements one might 
nearly conjecture what he was saying, His voice 
had in it almost every sort of musical sound; it was 
sometimes as sweet as the notes of a violin, and at 
others as mellow as an organ. He was so great a 



PIOZZfANA. 177 

master of original wit, rhetoric without rules, and 
natural eloquence of every kind, that he made those 
who heard him speak, believe him in the right for the 
time, be the subject of his oration what it might. 
He was, in short, neither moral, learned, nor wise; 
but so amazingly clever, that he completely imposed 
himself as such, upon his hearers, while declaiming 
either on the hustings or in parliament. 

These rude outlines I had resolved to destroy ; but 
an observation of Mrs. P.'s not only prevented that 
design, but has encouraged me to introduce them 
here. She said, " Keep them, by all means ; they 
are coarse, but very strong likenesses of the mighty 
ones who are gone ; keep them, because they may 
hereafter be made use of; besides, rely upon this as 
a fact, though it were hard to say why, that there is 
nothing about which the human mind of after-times is 
so eager as the bodily and mental lineaments of dis- 
tinguished persons. The best parts of Aubrey's 
miscellaneous remains are his miniature pictures (daubs 
as they may be), of the great of his day." 



178 PIOZZIANA. 



LETTER. 



" My Dear Sir, 

"The first letter I ever had from Doctor 
Johnson is dated 1765. The regatta letter is in 1775, 
after my mother's death, who disapproved of my 
going into public so much, that I never did set my 
foot in a theatre till my eldest child, born in 1764, 
went with me to an oratorio. No diamonds did I 
ever possess." 



This note is in reference to a story I had repeated 
to herself, as told to me by an old lady of my acquaint- 
ance ; who, however, qualified the narrative by saying 
that her memory was not good, and she might be 
mistaken. Her story was, that, when young, and 
early in the reign of George III. she was one night 
at Covent Garden Theatre, when a new married 
belle was pointed out to her as Mrs. Thrale; and 
that she could only recollect that the bride looked 
lovely, and was adorned with diamonds. The reply 
on the part of Mrs. P. is characteristic, and undoubt- 



PIOZZIANA. 179 

edly contains the truth ; so that her contemporary 
must have forgotten, or been misled. 



LETTER. 

" How could I be so stupid about the dolphins of 
Antium. I was at Torre d'Anzio myself, and saw 
the relics of a temple to Fortune, at the little place 
called Nettuno ; the same lady whom Horace invokes, 
I suppose : 

' O Diva ! gratum quse regis Antium. 5 

" Lord ! how history and poetry do magnify matters ! 
The first, a common mirror, perhaps ; the second, a 
concave glass. Why, Torre d'Anzio is not above 
sixty or seventy miles from Rome ; and she is men- 
tioned by Ovid too, ' spissi littoris Antium ; ' but I 
cannot find the place, though I know it is where a 
man is black-balled, and Hercules changes the colour 
of the lot he draws." 



The passage referred to by Mrs. P. is in the 15th 
book of Ovid's Metamorphoses, line 718 — 

Et tellus Circsea, et spissi littoris Antium. 
n2 



180 PIOZZIANA. 



IMPROMPTU, 

BY MADAME HOUDELOT, THE FRIEND OF J. J. ROUSSEAU. 

La Nature, prudente et sage, 

Force le terns a respecter 
Les charmes de ce beau visage, 

Qu'elle n'auroit pu repeter. 



TRANSLATED BY MRS. PIOZZI, BATH, July 5, 1817. 

ON THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 

Nature commanded Time to spare 
The charms of lovely La Valliere ; 
Knowing his course must be completed, 
Before such charms could be repeated. 



At different times she borrowed books of mine for 
the purpose of reference : on one occasion a duode- 
cimo volume, known as " Andrews's Anecdotes," and 
" Dr. Sherwen's Introductory Essay on the Contro- 
versy respecting the Authenticity of Rowley's Poems." 
Both of these, when returned, contained some short 
notes by her on slips of paper, which I have carefully 
preserved pasted in their proper places in the volumes 
thus made valuable to me. I also possess a gift of 



PIOZZIANA. 181 

her's, the three volumes 8vo. of D'Israeli's " Curiosi- 
ties of Literature," in which are several marginal 
observations in her hand-writing'. 

A few of these specimens of her style of annotating 
may serve to amuse the reader. 

ANDREWS'S ANECDOTES, &c. 

" Many thanks for the pretty book, which you 
will at least see that I have read. 

" Garrick wrote these words in his library at Hamp- 
ton, in gold letters: — 

' La premiere chose, quand on emprunte un livre, 
C'est de le lire ; la seconde, c'est de le renvoyer.' 

" I hope we shall have our box for Coriolanus ? 
" 11th January, 1817." 



Kemble was in the bills to play Coriolanus at the 
Bath Theatre, Thursday, 14th January, 1817, and 
announced as about to quit the stage. 



182 PIOZZIANA. 

" Dr. Johnson said Du Bellay's epigram 

' Aboyant les larrons sans cesse, 
Muet pour l'amant favori ; 
J'etoit egalement eheri 
De mon maitre et de ma maitresse ; ' 

which he rendered thus, I remember, 

* To robbers furious, and to lovers tame, 
I pleased my master, and I pleased my dame ; ' 

was originally a Greek one out of the Anthologia. It 
is in every language : these are not printed quite 
correctly; I have read it in Spanish somewhere. " 

Du Bellay's epigram, as quoted by Andrews, is, 

" Latratu, fures excepi, mutus, amantes : 
Sic placui domino — sic placui dominse." 



" An idyllium of Theocritus, adapted to modern 
times, by the ingenious Robert Lloyd." — Andrs. 

" Oh ! those old Sicilian gossips made into Mrs. 
Scott and Mrs. Brown, by Bob Lloyd, are truly 
charming ! I have seen them done very comically 
into Italian." 



PIOZZIANA. 183 

" In the borough of Southwark is a sign on which 
is inscribed, ' The Old Pick my Toe.' " — Andrs. 
" So it is : I knew the sign, and was probably then the 
only person who could have guessed the derivation." 

The figure in question represented the Roman 
slave looking for a thorn in his foot, after he had 
delivered a message of state importance. The original 
of the London figure is of bronze ; it is finely pre- 
served, and was to be seen in Paris, where the writer 
examined it in 1815. 



THE MORAL COARSENESS OF OLD PLAYS. 

" Farquhar's making his Lord Aimwell offer 
Archer a choice between the money and the lady, 
is odd enough too." 



OPERA OF ARTAXERXES. 
" Great Augustus, long mayest thou," &c. 
" The reviewers justly remarked the absurdity of 
styling a king of Persia, Augustus." — Andrews. 

"Augustus was an appellative, not a name; but the 
Persians had never heard it, — their mode of saluting 
royalty was Darius, i. e. Sovereign." 



184 PIOZZIANA. 

" Lawyers mimicked by Mountfort, the actor, to 
amuse the Lord Chancellor Jeffries." — Andrews. 

" I dare say the humour of making Portia, in the 
Merchant of Venice, mimic Lord Mansfield, came 
from this ; 1 remember it always done." 



" Persons of high rank, drinking to excess," &c. — 

Andrews. 

" The weather's cold, our Regent said. 
Here fill me out a rummer ; 
Till swallow after swallow made 
The Prince believe 'twas summer." 

66 Verses in four languages, written on the window 
of an inn, at Pont Bonvoisin; — 

" In questa casa troverete, 
Tout ce que vous pouvez souhaiter ; 
Bonum vinum, lectos, carnes ; 
Coaches, chaises, horses, harness." 



"Mr. Osbaldeston, the great economist. ^ — An- 
drews. 

" This is all strictly true ; Mr. Thrale knew the man 
personally, and invited him once to hunt with him at 
Croydon, that I might see so singular a character." 



PIOZZIANA. 185 

" Lopez d'Acunha, a gallant Spaniard," &c. — 
Andrews. 

" George the Third, not seeing well, touched the 
sun-dial on Windsor Terrace somewhat roughly. 
6 Let it alone, your honour,' said the sentinel. ' Dost 
not know me, soldier?' said the king. 'Yes, Sir, I 
do,' replied the man, unmoved; 6 but your Majesty 
knows I must obey orders.' The addition to this is, 
that the king gave the man a piece of gold." 

"LEfameux La Galisse, chanson niais." — Andrews. 

Andrews speaks of a sonnet borrowed from the 
above; but as if ignorant of the author of " Madame 
Blaize ;" and Mrs. Piozzi's remark on the passage is, 
" The lines are of Goldsmith's doing, but the humour 
does not please in English." 



SWIFT. 
Andrews quotes the following lines by Swift, who 
must, says Andrews, have been twenty-four years 
old, when he wrote them : — 

" The first of plants after the thunder, storm, and rain, 
And thence with joyful, nimble wing, 
Flew dutifully back again ; 



186 PIOZZIANA. 

Who by that vainly talks of baffling death, 

And hopes to lessen life by a transfusion of breath, &c. 

"These," observes Mrs. P., "were the lines which 
led Dryden, when he saw them, to say, ' Cousin 
Swift, thou wilt never make a poet;' — a sentence, 
Johnson tells us, which the Dean never forgave." 

I suspect some falsehood, or at least some strange 
mistake, in this story, repeated by Johnson and his 
friend Mrs. Piozzi. Such execrable lines could not 
have been written by him who was already the author 
of " a Tale of a Tub." And it is possible that there 
may have been some other writer of the same name 
as the Dean of St. Patricks, to whom the composition 
referred to ought to be attributed. In that most ex- 
traordinary work, " Dnnton^s Life and Errors," 1 
find, in the edition of 1705, Dunton acknowledging 
his obligations for articles sent to the " Athenian 
Oracle," to a " Mr. Swift, a country gentleman." 
But, in 1705, Dean Swift was thirty-eight years old, 
and known to the public, at least as an ecclesiastic. 



piozzrANA. 187 



PIRON. 

" When a blind man begged of Piron the acade- 
mician, as he came one day from hearing mass, at 
Notre-Dame, he answered him in the words of Saint 

Peter, 

" * Argentum et aurum non est mihi, quod autem 

habeo, hoc tibi do.' 

" So, taking out his tablets, he wrote these lines, 

and pinned them on the breast of the blind man : — 

Chretiens ! ail nom Tout-puissant, 
Faites moi l'aumone en passant : 

L'aveugle qui vous la demande, 
Ignorera qui la fera ; 
Mais Dieu qui voit tout, la verra ; 

Je lui prierai qui vous la rende,' 

You that enjoy the light of day, 
Relieve a wretched blind man, pray : 
Unseen by me, your alms let fall, 
He sees them clear, who sees us all ; 
And when his rays remove all shade, 
In sight of all, you'll be repaid." 



188 PIOZZIANA. 



LETTER.— WITH A PRESENT OF DISRAELI'S 
" CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE." 

" Bath, AprilS, 1817. 
" Will you, my dear Sir, to the many kindnesses 
you have shown me, add that of accepting these books, 
which I at first bought for myself, and deformed with 
notes on the margin. Afterwards, however, in a vain 
humour, fancying you would like the manuscript non- 
sense along with the printed text, C. bound them, and 
has made half the writing illegible to any one who 
would not (as you do) know how to read, and always 
with partial favour, the worst hand of your ever obliged 

and faithful, 

« H. L. Piozzi." 

" I would have inserted the Verses on a Watch- 
Clock ; but that I think they are in Miss 's 

scrap-book." 



SIR ROBERT COTTON,— DTsraeli, Vol. I. 

" My first cousin, unlike to him, except in name, 
Sir Robert Salusbury Cotton, father to this Lord 



PIOZZIANA. 189 

Cumbermere, burned all the Electress Sophia's elegant 
letters to his and my grandfather. I once saw them : 
she signed her name, I remember, with a long s, 
and there were many Latin quotations. 

"H. L. P. 1817." 



LOUIS XIV. AND CORNEILLE. 

" The king knew he had killed him with unkindness : 
the poet had presumed on his Majesty's attentions, 
aud wished to give political advice, which Louis would 
not endure." 



DOCTOR DEE.— Temp. Eliz. and Jas. I. 

" Doctor Dee was a quack and an astrologer ; 
and pretended to tell fortunes. His name was 
not Dee, but he called himself so, as professor 
of the black arts: Dee in the Cambro-British 
tongue meaning black: the river Dee is the black 
river. The Doctor was a Welshman. A piece of 



190 PIOZZIANA. 

black basalt belonging to him, is now at Strawberry 
Hill— 1817." 



SAMUEL BOYCE. 

" Doctor Johnson used to beg for him ; but did not 
relate, till after his decease, how, when he had pro- 
cured a guinea, and laid it out in roast beef and port 
wine, Boyce quarrelled with him, because he had 
forgotten their favourite sauce ; " and how can a 
man eat roast-beef," said he, " without mushrooms, 
or catsup." 



L.YDIAT. 

" This," says D'Israeli, " was that learned scholar 
whom Johnson alludes to ; which allusion was not un- 
derstood by Boswell and others." 

" Very true ; Lydiat's life, and Galileo's end, is 
the line referred to." 



ERASMUS IN A POST-CHAISE. 
" On horse-back : there were then no post chaises." 



PIOZZIANA* 191 

HAGLEY. 
" The Lord of Hagley used to send his visitants to 
see the Leasowes, directing them in at the wrong door, 
that so they might read the inscriptions backwards ! 
4 These little things are great to little men,' says 
Goldsmith.'' 



THE PINELL1 LIBRARY. 

" D' Israeli states that the < books of this splendid 
library, being shipped for Naples, and seized on the 
passage by pirates, were all thrown into the sea/ 

" Edwards of Pall Mall, however, and Robson of 
Bond Street, bought a few; and I believe Lord 
Spencer has them." 



APOLLO AND MINERVA 

ON THE TOMB OF SANNAZARIUS, IN A CATHOLIC CHAPEL. 

" This is the joke, one hundred times repeated, on 
Sannazarius's tomb ! But why do we not laugh at Her- 
cules and Minerva on General Wade's, or General 



192 PIOZZIANA. 

Fleming's tombs, in Westminster Abbey ? I think 
there it is worse.*" 



THE RIVER PO. 
" This river is so rapid, that Tasso says of it : 

Pare 
Che porti guerra enon tributo al mare. 

" And Miss Seward says that our little river Dee, 

As o'er the rocks it raves, 
Brings terror and not tribute to the waves." 



FINIS. 

" A prologue was presented by one French wit fo 
another, for correction and advice. Q Sir,' replied his 
friend, c there is but one letter wrong; instead of 
saying, fin du prologue, let us print it, fi du pro- 
logue.' " 



VORAGINUS. 
" Voraginus was so called from Voragine, a gulf, 
which swallows all; as Erskine's book styles London, 
SwaloaL" 



PIOZZLANA. 193 

ANAGRAM. 
" There is a comical story in the world, of Sir 
Roger L'Estrange going to see Lee, the poet, when 
confined for lunacy. The first expressing his con- 
cern to see his old friend in so dull a place, c Ay, Sir,' 
replied the other, 

* Manners may alter, circumstances change, 
But I am Strange Lee still, and you Le Strange.' " 



" The prayers of the great are so many orders." — 

D'lSRAELI. 

" It should be requests ; when kings are forced to 
pray for civility, they are sure to be refused." 



TITLE. 



"D'Israeli says, 'I find two verses in my copy of 
Selden's Titles of Honour, in an old handwriting, 
which I think worth preserving : — 

* And never yet was title did not move, 
And never eke a mind that title did not love. ' 



194 PIOZZIANA. 

A thought borrowed by Shenstone, in his School- 
mistress, the expression scarcely changed." 

The lines in the Schoolmistress, referred to by 
Mrs. Piozzi, are — 

" For never title yet so mean could prove, 
But there was eke a mind which did that title love." 



QUEEN SHEBA. 
" The Queen was called Shebeh, because she was 
Queen regnant, not consort. Shebeh is a sceptre; 
she swayed it in her own right" 



FASHION. 

"Aimwell and Archer, in Farquhar's Play, talk 
much on the subject of wigs ; and I remember Garrick 
dressing the wig on the stage, and saying, 'This is 
the most obstinate curl !*" 



PIOZZIANA. 195 

NATURAL PRODUCTIONS. 

" There was a Count Rombassome, who, about 
fifteen years ago, showed a Labrador stone, with the 
effigies of Louis Seize upon it; — his crown dropping 
off and 6 gouts of blood ' visible round the neck. He 
sold facsimiles of it for one guinea each; I bought 
one, and set it in a seal for Lady Williams. The 
original was much admired, till somebody said it was 
helped out, and then the whole story faded away." 



FARINELLI AND THE POWER OF MUSIC. 

" This is making a wonder of no uncommon occur- 
rence. The King of Spain was melancholy, in con- 
sequence of his wife's death; and to hear the song 
she was fond of, sung by Farinelli, soothed his sorrow. 
After the King was in bed every night, Farinelli was 
regularly called to execute that particular air, < Per 
quel caro amplassoP And it goes by the name of 
' II Re di Spagna ' now, among Italian professors of 



o 2 



196 PIOZZIANA. 



CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE.— Vol. II. 



LITERARY FOLLIES. 

" Example : — 

Sometimes I've a head, and sometimes I've a tail, 

And sometimes I am seen without either ; 

The Judge I adorn often sends me to jail, 

Yet the thing I most hate is bad weather. 

When contracted to ladies, I sit close and sly* 

Renouncing my very existence ; 

When expanded by wisdom, I meet your broad eye, 

And some wise men have own'd my assistance. 

Yet, on night's near approach, here your pardon I beg, 

I exchange Doctor Parr for my dear little Peg." 



LITERARY CONTROVERSY. 

" A lady, not at all a lady of affectation, repri- 
manding her coachman for getting drunk, read to him 
the story of Alexander killing Clytus, with proper 
comments; and in so impressive a manner, that the 
fellow burst into tears, and promised he would never 
get drunk again. I wondered, when she told me, that 
the man did not laugh at her, instead of crying for old 
Clytus." 



PIOZZIANA. 197 

" A Welsh bishop made an apology to James I. 
for preferring the Deity to his Majesty." — D'Israeli. 
" Qu. who was he ? " 

I am unable to answer Mrs. Piozzi's question ; but 
D'Israeli's story might have been told of Dr. Neale, 
Bishop of Durham : for, when James I. asked the 
Bishop of Winchester and him, " My Lords, cannot 
I take my subjects' money when I want it, without all 
this formality of Parliament?" the Bishop of Dur- 
ham readily answered, " God forbid, Sir, but you 
should ; you are the breath of our nostrils." 

See Johnson's Life of Waller. 



LOVE AND FOLLY. 

" When Love and Folly went to play, 
Upon a sun-shine holyday, 

Poor Cupid cried, be quiet ; 
Have done, you silly creature, — do ; 
Romping's unsafe with such as you : 

I'm blinded in this riot. 
Straight to Olympus they repair : 
* Nay, if he fell in Folly's snare,' 

Bright Venus quickly cries out ; 



198 PIOZZIANA. 

* Let her henceforward be his guide ;' 
' Right, right ;' old Jupiter replied, 

"Twas she that put his eyes out. ' * 

This annotation by Mrs. P. relates to a " Morality" 
by Louise L'Abbe, the Aspasia of Lyon, in 1550: 
the title is " Debat de Folie et d'Amour." 



ABR1DGERS. 
" A lady onee asked me at Streatham Park, to 
lend her a book. ' What sort of a book would you 
like?' said I. 'An abridgment,' was the unex- 
pected reply; ' the last pretty book I had was an 
abridgment/ w 



OBSCURITY. 
M Burke said it was a source of the sublime." 



DR. HAWKSWORTH'S VOYAGES. 
" He got so large a sum of money for the work, 
they never suffered him to enjoy it for an hour ! " And 



PIOZZIANA. 199 

Mrs. P. adds, " his lamentable death was the result 
of the persecution he underwent." 



FURETIERE. 
"Furetiere wrote the pretty French chanson aboire 
from which was imitated our 4 Tippling Philosophers/" 



THE DREAM OF PATRIS, THE POET OF CAEN. 
"This is imperfectly quoted by DTsraeli ; Here 
are the verses : — 

Je songeois cette nuit, que de mal consume, 
Cote-a-cote d'un Pauvre on m' avoit inhume ; 
Mais que ne pouvant pas souffrir le voisinage, 
En mort de Qualite je lui tins ce langage : 
Retire toi, Coquin, — va pourrir loin d'ici, 
II ne t'appartient pas de m'approcher ainsi ; — 
Coquin ! me repondoit-il d'une arrogance extreme : 
Va chercher tes coquins ailleurs, Coquin toi-meme ; 
Ici tous sont egaux ; je ne te dois plus rien : 
Je suis sur mon fumier — comme toi sur le tien. 

I dream'd that in my house of clay, 
A beggar buried by me lay ; 
Rascal ! go rot apart, I cried, 
Nor thus disgrace my noble side ! 
Rascal yourself ! the corpse replied ; 



200 PIOZZIANA. 

I owe you nothing • look not sour ; 
Death levels all, both rich and poor ; 
Lie still then, Friend, and make no more ado ; 
I'm on my dunghill here — as well as you." 



SCARRON. 

" Who addressed one of his dedications to his Dog." 
" Hannah More wrote an Ode, in former days, to 
Garrick's dog, Dragon." 



ROMANCES. 

" We have a singular story in Wales, of a man who 
married a fairy, and called her Penelope. She told 
him that the touch of cold iron would be fatal to their 
happiness. But he fell from his horse one day, when 
they were riding out together, and the horse ran away. 
Our lovers forgot their caution : he threw the bit and 
bridle, so that the bit touched her finger ; when, like 
Eurydice, she disappeared, and was lost to him for 
ever." 



FIOZZIANA. 201 

JAMES I. 

D'Israeli relates the treacherous conduct of this 
most contemptible fellow, King James I. towards the 
Earl of Somerset ; calling out to the Earl, on whose 
disgrace he had determined at the time, " For God's 
sake, when shall I see thee again ! " &c. On which 
passage Mrs. Piozzi's remark is a quotation of the very- 
words used by James in the hearing of his servants, 
before the Earl had well turned his back . " Ah blessed 
be God, I shall never see thee more. V " Hypocriti- 
cal monster ! " 

James I. said " Were I not a King, I would be 
a University-man." — D'Israeli. 

" And the honourable Thomas Eitzmaurice, father 
to the present Lord Kirkwall, said he would — if not a 
linendraper — be provost of Eton ! " 



GENERAL MONK'S WIFE. 

" She had been his cook ; and when he was refrac- 
tory, she was wont (says some old book) to beat his 
good Grace with the ladle." 



202 PIOZZIANA. 

MODES OF SALUTATION, &c. 
" Of which, and of their origin, the wisest account 
is in the < Fable of the Bees.' " 



FIRE-WORKS, AND TORRE, THE ARTIST. 
" When Torre was in England, he exhibited some 
beautiful Pantomimes in fire, at Marybone Gardens. 
Venus begging armour of Vulcan for iEneas, I re- 
member; and Theseus, (Hercules, I mean,) dragging 
Pirithous from hell. The artist was imprisoned soon 
after for gross immorality. c He may now (said Stee- 
vens to my father) organise a new fire-work !' " 



INFLUENCE OF NAMES. 

HERTZ SCHWARTS. 

" It was Schwartsfield, black-field, or, as we say, 
black-lands. Casaubon was a name of the same kind: 
his family appellation was Beaujardin, and he some- 
times does call himself Hortibonus. Doctor Johnson 
said Albinus's anatomical tables were the work of a 
Mr. White, who latinised his name at the University 



PIOZZIANA. 203 

of Ley den. A Mr. Black, his friend, called himself 
Nigrinus, and the people laughed at him." 



CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE.— Vol. III. 



THE PANTOMIMICAL CHARACTER. 

" DTsraeli expresses his wonder as to how the 
Latin word Sannio was converted into the Italian 
Zanni, &c." 

" The Latin Sannio makes the Tuscan Giovanni, 
which Venetians speak and write Zanni: thence a 
zany, a fool, ajean-potage, a jack-pudding." 



MR. PUNCH, 
" In Italy, denominated Policinello, a little flea : 
active and biting, and skipping ; and his mask, puce 
colour ; the nose imitating in shape the flea's proboscis." 



HARLEQUIN. 
" When Arlecchino, a native of Bergamo, crossed 



204 PIOZZIANA. 

the Alps to France, he became Harlequin ; and they 
said, or fancied, that there was an allusion to Charles 
Quint: 9 



LAZZI, A SPECIES OF BUFFOONERY. 

" Whence Lazzagnetti, a sort of flat maccaroni 
which these drolls pretended to spit out of their 
mouths ; for in all these exhibitions no delicacy was 
ever admitted to destroy mirth, or rather gross merri- 
ment." 



THE ITALIAN THEATRE. 

See in D'Israeli a curious account of what is 
called a "platt," i. e. a paper of stage directions for 
the arrangement of a sort of pantomime in Elizabeth's 
times ; in which is found " Pantaloon, and his man 
Peascod, with spectacles." Steevens supposes this 
explains the passage in " As You Like it; " " the lean 
and slippered pantaloon, with spectacles on nose." 
Mrs. Piozzi observes, " Certainly slippered; he runs 
after Harlequin, and cannot catch him, as he runs in 
slippers." 



PIOZZIANA. 20 

MASSINGER, &c. 

" Massinger, and Moliere, and Ben Jonson, all 
make the business of their play, whatever it is, sub- 
servient to one leading character , the other people 
are as nothing but figurantes. Mr. Luke, Sir Giles 
Overreach, Volpone, and the Malade Imaginaire, 
attract and detain your attention from all the other 
characters." 



" c White figs in England as good/ says Sir William 
Temple, c as any of that sort in Italy.' The art of 
cultivating them must have been lost; for our figs now 
resemble not in any wise those of Italy." 



CHIDIOCK TITCHBOURNE, AND TOM 
SALUSBURY. 

" Tom was an ancestor of mine. The Queen's 
(Elizabeth's) grant of pardon to Salusbury, not 
Salisbury, as DTsraeli prints it, is in my nephew's 
possession now; her majesty's figure delineated on 
the parchment. H. L. P. 1817. 

" The name was originally Saltsbury, from Adam 



206 PIOZZIANA. 

de Saltsburgh, son of Abraham, Duke and Prince of 
Bavaria. In the year 1070, his adventurous spirit led 
him to England with William the Conqueror, who 
gave him in Lancashire ' a fayre house,' says the 
pedigree, ' called Saltsbury Court.'" 

" The Queen (Elizabeth,) was greatly c angried.' — 
6 Angered : ' — the other never was an English word." 



COURT CEREMONIES. 

" In the court of James the First, a stool at the 
end of the table was reserved empty, for state." — 
DTsraeli. 

" Thence came the < honours of the Tabouret.' " 



NAMES OF STREETS IN LONDON. 

PICCADILLY BEING ERRONEOUSLY EXPLAINED BY D'iSRAELI. 

" Piccadilly was named from a Dutch word, Pick- 
adil, the hem, or outskirt of the town ; as it was, in 
King William the Third's time. Lord Burlington 
used to rejoice that he lived where nobody could go 
beyond him," 



PI0ZZ1ANA. 



207 



PURIM PLACE. 

" Not long ago, a Hebrew, who had a quarrel with 
his community, built a neighbourhood at Bethnal- 
Green, and retained the subject of his anger in the 
name the houses bear, of Purim Place. This may 
startle some theological antiquary at a remote period, 
&c. — D'Israeli. 

" He will start, because Purim means Lot in 
Hebrew; so the man, having quarrelled, he knew 
why, with his neighbours, called it, half in anger, 
half with delicacy, Purim Place; he would not say 
Lot's Place." 



DRINKING IN ENGLAND. 
' Et quocunque deus circum caput egit honestum. Georg. ii. 392. 
6t Honnete, in French, renders the Latin exactly." 



TOM O' BEDLAM. 



" When I was about twelve years old, I remember 
James Harris, of Salisbury, and my dear old friend 



208 PIOZZIANA. 

and tutor, Doctor Collier of the Commons, talking, 
and telling of a man they called Dowdie, who diverted 
the townsfolk of Salisbury by personating a lunatic, 
to amazing exactness ; and when a young blustering 
fellow came to the inn, it was their sport to frighten 
him with Dowdie. This went on, I think, till some 
foreign gentleman ran the mock bedlamite through 
one arm with his sword; and after that he would 
play Dowdie no more. ,, 



CHARLES I. AND HIS DIAMOND SEAL, 

MENTIONED BY HERBERT. 

"A diamond is a diamond only because of its 
hardness. I question whether 'any tool can engrave 
on a good diamond. I once saw an emerald of 
oriental birth, and great value. Its owner told me 
it was almost a diamond, and he would have it 
engraved. The work cost him fifty-eight guineas, 
and the gem was much reduced in size. It was so 
hard it ruined every tool that touched it, and the 
figure on it was ill expressed after all." 



PIOZZIANA, 1209 

THE GOODS, &c. OF CHARLES I. SOLD BY ORDER 
OF THE COUNCIL OF STATE, 

" I saw a cabinet at the Colonna Palace, in Italy, 
which had belonged to Charles L ? and they seemed in 
1786, to esteem it very highly.' ' 



THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 
" There is a very pretty, quaintly-expressed letter 
of Howell's to the Favourite, saying he would stand 
more surely without an anchor, &c. ; meaning that he 
should give up his place of Lord High Admiral." 



JOHNSON'S LIFE OF POPE. 

Doctor Johnson says of Pope, "he has a few 

double rhymes ; but always, I think, unsuccessfully, 

except once in the Rape of the Lock." 

The concluding comment by Mrs, Piozzi on 

D' Israeli's work, is 

" The meeting points the fatal lock dissever, 
From the fair head—for ever and for ever ; 

was the couplet Johnson meant, for I asked him, and 

he said so. " H. L. P." 

p 



210 PIOZZIANA. 



DOCTOR SHERWEN ON CHATTERTON. 

Doctor S. says in his preface to " an Introduction, 
&c." that " the grossness of an error is not the less for 
the number or respectability of its supporters." 

Mrs. Piozzi observes in the margin of my copy of 
the "Introduction," " Well, if a thousand, or if ten 
thousand people joining in a blunder, hinder it not from 
being a blunder, what will become of a common news- 
paper and even parliamentary phrase, ' under these 
circumstances'? For, though a man may be under 
correction, or under the rod of affliction, he cannot 
well be under circumstances, which, to be such, 
must necessarily stand around us." 



SWARTE, 

WHICH IN GERMAN MEANS BLACK. 

" Swart in the German tongue is black, certainly. 
The real name of Melancthon was Swartsfeld ; as we 
say Blacklands. They Grecised the word at his 
university." 



PIOZZIANA. *2il 



FUSELI'S NIGHT MARE. 



" It is long since I saw Fuseli's night-mare, which 
appeared to me a sort of undefinable thing with a 
head of stone : or not unlike the bony skeleton of a 
mare's, or horse's head; it impressed me, I remember, 
with precisely the feelings he wished. ' Les meres de 
nuit,' is a most elegant explanation, and to me — 
new." 

The explanation is Doctor Sherwen's, and un- 
doubtedly an instance of very happy conjectural 
criticism. Nothing can be conceived more absurd 
than Fuseli's mistake, and that of multitudes more 
learned than the painter, on this subject 



ROUGE. 
I shall here endeavour to comment, as far as I can, 
on several points in my Piozziana, upon which I may 
not have sufficiently enlarged in their proper places ; 
if any place can be supposed less proper than another, 
in such an olio as this. 

When Mrs. Piozzi sat for the miniature picture 
p 2 



212 PIOZZIANA. 

which she gave me, she directed the artist to represent 
her as wearing rouge : and this unnatural colour is 
very discernible in the painting. She carefully put 
it upon her cheeks every day before she went out ; 
and sometimes before she would admit a visitor — or 
sometimes in his presence. One day I called early at 
her house ; and as I entered her drawing-room, she 
passed me, saying "Dear sir, I will be with you in a 
few minutes ; but, while I think of it, I must go to 
my dressing-closet and paint my face, which I forgot 
to do this morning." Accordingly she soon returned, 
wearing the requisite quantity of bloom; which, it 
must be noticed, was not in the least like that of 
youth and beauty. I then said that I was surprised 
she should so far sacrifice to fashion, as to take that 
trouble. Her answer was that, as I might conclude, 
her practice of painting did not proceed from any 
silly compliance with Bath fashion, or any fashion; 
still less, if possible, from the desire of appearing 
younger than she was, but from this circumstance, 
that in early life she had worn rouge, as other young 
persons did in her day, as a part of dress ; and after 
continuing the habit for some years, discovered that 



PIOZZIANA. 218 

it had introduced a dead yellow colour into her com- 
plexion, quite unlike that of her natural skin, and 
that she wished to conceal the deformity In this 
there was something rational : but, what can be 
imagined more ridiculous than the attempt of common 
minds, in the female world, to hide the effects of the 
encroachment of time ? The beauty of old age — and it 
has beauties peculiar to itself — consists in being, in all 
respects, as unlike youth as possible. At seventy, 
paleness and silver hair are ornamental ; but there is 
somewhat unutterably shocking, and worse than taste- 
less, in the countenances of many of the old ladies to 
be met with in such profusion, at card-parties and 
elsewhere : something hideous in the conflict carried on 
in their visages, between wrinkles and roses : eyes 
half extinct, and glossy ringlets of purchased hair. 
And may it not be asked, uhy should that system of 
juvenile dressing be thought proper in general life, 
which would be considered inadmissible on the stage ? 
There, when sympathy is to be called forth, the 
costume of the old, however at variance with times 
and manners, is calculated to imply the seriousness, 
dignity, worth and weakness, of declining years : and 



214 PIOZZIANA. 

Mrs, Heidelberg, Lord Ogleby, Mrs. Hardeastle, &c. y 
are arrayed in youthful finery, that they may be 
laughed at. 



SANTERRE, 

Mrs. Piozzi mentions the name of this remarkable 
man, and adds an anecdote of his having a horse 
belonging to him, stabbed by an insolent courtier, 
before the revolution, &e. What was the primary 
cause of his becoming a violent republican, it would 
now be difficult, if not impossible, to discover. But 
she assured me that in private circles he appeared to 
be a person of strong natural sense, and great plain- 
ness and sincerity of character. If so, he could not 
have deserved the reproach with which his memory 
has been stigmatised in the history of the times. 

He commanded, as every one knows, the guards 
which surrounded the scaffold, when Louis XVI. 
was put to death; and has since been consigned to 
infamy, for the cruel act of ordering the drums to 
beat loudly, and thereby preventing the people from 



PIOZZIANA. 215 

hearing the words of the wretched king, when about 
to address them. He has, however, been thoroughly 
and ably exculpated, in an account, published by an 
English traveller, of a visit to France made by him 
early in the century ; I am not sure, but I think the 
name of the writer is King : his defence of General 
Santerre is as follows. He was introduced to him, 
and found him returned to his original occupation of 
brewing. They conversed till the stranger discerned 
that Santerre was such a man as Mrs. Piozzi described 
him ; and so candid, and apparently incapable of inhu- 
manity, that he designedly started the subjects of the 
revolution, and the execution of Louis; bluntly telling 
the other what was generally reported and believed. 
His answer was, that the report was perfectly correct ; 
that he had ordered the drums to beat, expressly to 
hinder Louis from being heard ; for which his reason 
was, that, on the eve of the day of execution, he had 
ascertained the existence of a conspiracy of many hun- 
dred young men, who had agreed to meet in the Place 
de la Revolution, armed, and provided with signals by 
which to recognise each other; and that as soon as 



216 PIOZZIANA. 

the King should have spoken, they were simulta- 
neously to make an attempt to rescue him. "This," 
proceeded Santerre, " I knew must end in a dreadful 
tumult, the loss of multitudes of people, the defeat of 
the Royalists, and the death of the monarch; for I 
had present, and in a state of thorough discipline, 
sixty thousand troops, who would, I was sure, do their 
duty, and obey the Assembly: to prevent this scene 
of horror, I acted as I did ; and applaud myself for 
having done so." 

This is probably a true statement ; the action per- 
formed, and the motives, are consonant to the ordinary 
principles of human conduct; while the brutality 
alleged against Santerre is contrary to these principles, 
and improbable : no bad rule, perhaps, whereby to 
judge of the force of testimony in general. 



MACKENZIE, AND SIR WALTER SCOTT. 

Mackenzie certainly had merit as a writer of pe- 
riodical essays ; but his fame seems to have been 



FIOZZIANA, 217 

founded chiefly on his "Man of Feeling," which, after 
all, if carefully examined, would not endure the scru- 
tiny of criticism. It is, however, a prime favourite 
with young novel-readers ; and, as far as morals are 
concerned, "there is no offence in it." There is less 
foolishness, and more regularity of story in his " Man 
of the World ; " though Boswell reports that Doctor 
Johnson, having read the work, said he saw but little 
in it ; and Mrs. Piozzi used the same expression, in 
speaking of the book to me. Still, she gave high 
praise to Mackenzie, and much higher to Sir Walter 
Scott, to whose name, the mention of Scotland, and 
Scottish writers, naturally led us. When this con- 
versation occurred, early in 1815, the author of 
" Waverley" was unknown, but eagerly guessed at; 
and I could, at the time, in some measure, have assisted 
conjecturers in their search, owing to the following 
circumstance, which, strangely enough, then escaped 
my recollection. 

In the summer of 1804, being at Edinburgh, and 
walking one evening with a friend in the suburbs, we 
were joined by Sir Walter Scott, to whom I had 
been previously known, and to whom indeed I was 



218 PIOZZIANA. 

indebted, during my residence in the Scottish capital, 
for numberless polite and hospitable attentions; and 
for many a cheerful hour most pleasurably passed in 
his society. In the course of our walk, we reached a 
handsome house, the door of which was open, and an 
elderly, thin man, without his hat, was standing on 
the steps in front. Either my friend, or Sir Walter, 
I now forget which, but to the best of my belief it 
was Scott, turned to me, and said, " you must be pre- 
sented to our Scottish Addison — Mr. Mackenzie," 
who immediately honoured me with his hand. Long 
after this, came out " Waverley;" with a Dedication, 
not, as usual, prefixed, but at the end of the con- 
cluding page, " To the Scottish Addison, Henry 
Mackenzie." When I saw this, it forcibly brought 
the past to my mind ; the epithet, so applied, created 
a suspicion as to the unknown author; and this, 
though not direct, is an instance of very strong cir- 
cumstantial evidence, such as in a court of justice 
would have almost produced conviction ! Notwith- 
standing this, I was myself, for several years, 
doubtful, or rather I had adjusted the difficulty, by 
supposing that some one, intimate with Sir W. Scott, 



PIOZZIANA. 219 

must have been the writer of the far-famed Novels 
and Romances ; and that these had been occasionally- 
submitted for correction, augmentation, &c, to Scott. 

My reasons for entertaining doubts of his claims to 
the labours of the undisclosed author, were, according 
to my conception, not only cogent but unanswerable ; 
namely, the profusion of bad writing which appeared 
in the so much talked-of works, mingled with some 
of the most splendid passages, both as to fancy and 
style, which the English language can show. But I 
close this article here : to specify the errors alluded 
to, would be an unwelcome office to me, and to 
others; to enlarge, with sufficient praise, on the 
beauties in the pages of him who wrote " Waverley," 
impossible. 

Sir Walter Scott ,has recently been taken, by the 
stroke of fate, from the country his genius adorned; 
and the sale of his books has increased since the occur- 
rence of this really national calamity. His fame will 
probably last longer than that of most eminent men ; 
certainly longer than that of any so admired during 
life as he was. Such full renown as he enjoyed, is 
generally reserved for the memory of the mighty. 



220 PIOZZIANA. 

I 

How trivial was the reputation of the living Shak- 
speare, compared with what now attends the mention 
of his imperishable name ! 



COSTUME. 

At every opportunity which presented itself, Mrs. 
Piozzi was 4he strenuous advocate of the present day, 
in opposition to the past; and in defiance of a prevail- 
ing and very long established weakness among old 
people, that of supposing every thing now worse than 
what it was formerly. On the contrary, she always 
maintained, that " nothing but ignorance or forget- 
fulness of what our grandfathers and grandmothers 
generally did and suffered, not politically, but in 
matters of dress, behaviour, &c, could incline anyone 
to entertain a doubt as to the fact of modern improve- 
ment in most of the essentials of life." This, she 
would say, was especially true with regard to our 
habiliments; and used to expatiate very agreeably, 
not only on the absurdities of the habits usually worn 
in her early days, but on the consequent embarrass- 



PIOZZIANA. 221 

ments in which the artists of the age were involved; 
pointing to miniature pictures of the times, then before 
us, or to engravings of celebrated paintings, executed 
to commemorate some occurrences of great public 
interest. She thus often made infinite sport for her- 
self and me, by her comments. For instance, she 
called the famous " Death of Lord Chatham," (who, 
as my reader must recollect, is represented fainting in 
his place in the House of Peers,) " a record of wig- 
gery ; " and laughed excessively at the rueful effects 
produced on the different physiognomies of the sur- 
rounding crowd of distinguished men in this com- 
position, by the mass of wigs presented to the spec- 
tator's eye, the incredible variety of human ugliness 
they exhibit, and the utter impossibility, on the part 
of the painter, to do justice to the requisite expression 
of countenance in heads surmounted by such execrable 
articles of costume as full-bottomed perukes. 



THEATRE. 
From many passages in her letters, it appears that 
the playhouse had always great attractions for Mrs. 



222 PIOZZIANA. 

Piozzi, and this her conversation confirmed. She was, 
in fact, on the reasonable side of enthusiasm, among 
the fondest votaries of the amusements of the stage ; 
and defended her partiality, by what seemed to me 
arguments equally ingenious and solid I have my- 
self constantly been so great an admirer of the drama, 
that I own I was highly pleased to have my taste 
sanctioned by a person such as she was. The truth 
is, that the stage has been basely calumniated. To 
apply, in substance, what I have said elsewhere more 
diffusely, it would be easy to prove that a prejudice 
against the stage is, to the utmost degree, illiberal 
and unjust; and that the greatest injury which, for 
many years, the public mind has suffered, has been 
inflicted by the opponents of the drama. The 
unthinking, and wrong-headed among these, know 
nothing of the moral power of the stage, and its 
supporters; and have, unwittingly, lent their aid to 
its enemies of another description, the self-styled 
Righteous; who are, in reality, and with a view to 
their own advantage, the foes of every system by 
which the human intellect can be enlightened, or the 
human heart improved; the foes of that stage, for which 



PIOZZIANA. 223 

the prince of poets, and moralists, — Sliakspeare, — 
composed his immortal scenes ; which has been graced 
by the Muse of Steele, and Addison, and Thomson ; 
for the adornment of which, and to advance its noble 
ends, the wisdom, and wit, and genius of this une- 
qualled country, England, have been for centuries 
exerted. That stage, which, be it remembered, found 
its steadiest and kindest patron in George the Third, 
who was, for fifty years, a constant attendant on its 
delights: that stage, dignified by the magic talents 
of Garrick, Siddons, Kemble, Henderson, Edwin, 
Farren, Lewis, Young, and hundreds more, whose 
" resistless eloquence " has so often been employed 
on the boards of the theatre, in that best, and highest, 
and nearly holiest of all offices, — that of teaching man- 
kind to prefer virtue to vice, and reason to folly. 



VISIONS, DREAMS, &c. 
Like all persons of lively fancy, she loved such 
discussions as were connected with stories of appari- 
tions of the dead, omens, witches, and devilry of all 
sorts; and in the course of her investigations, was 



224 PIOZZiANA. 

most instructive and entertaining; showing extra- 
ordinary intimacy with sundry strange forgotten books, 
and great strength and acuteness of understanding. 

In this way, a conversation, commencing in some 
trifling narrative of superstition, was sure to terminate 
on her part, with a philosophical exposition of what 
seemed supernatural, and in some rich and well- 
introduced anecdote. Talking of the warnings of 
death, which all of the race of Bourbon were reported 
to have had, &c, she observed, that the flights of 
imagination were not confined to objects of vision, 
but extended themselves still more unaccountably to 
sounds ; and that she thought there was scarcely any 
one who had not experienced once, at least, during 
life, an instance of what is termed a call; that is, a 
conviction of having distinctly heard the voice of 
a friend, then distant perhaps two hundred miles, 
pronounce aloud the hearer's name. This happened 
to Johnson, while a member of Pembroke college, 
when he heard, in the voice of his mother, at the 
moment in Lichfield, his name, Sam, plainly spoken. 
But, according to his biographer, Boswell, Doctor 
Johnson seems rather to have felt with more solemnity 



PIOZZIANA. 225 

on this occasion, than did Mrs. Piozzi, when talking 
of such things. In reality, Johnson never had a 
thought of examining matters of a preternatural cha- 
racter, with a view to rational solution ; whereas, she 
invariably did this, and explained them, agreeably 
to her pleasant hypothesis, as the effect of waking 
dreams. 

She once told us of a vision she had, but which led 
to nothing except the strengthening of her conviction 
as to the cause ; namely, the force of fancy, which will 
engage our minds, sleeping or waking, while its power 
over us shall prove as uncontroulable in the latter 
state, as in the former. This spectral visitation took 
place as she sat at an open window on a summer's 
evening at Streatham, when she saw a trusty servant- 
man belonging to her establishment, walking slowly 
towards the back door of her residence, and without 
acknowledging his mistress by smile or bow, though 
apparently looking up towards her, enter the house. 

She immediately after this ascertained that the man 
in question was within doors, and had not been out. 
This day-dreaming, as it may be termed, is common 

2 



226 PIOZZIANA. 

to all, and the foundation of most of the ghost-stories, 
gravely related, and as gravely credited. 

Dr. Johnson, she observed, was not far from believ- 
ing in second sight, as connected with deaths, and 
other misfortunes ; but to this Scottish privilege she 
always objected, as having in it neither merriment nor 
reason ; and as being productive of nothing but a de- 
pressing foreknowledge of ill which could not be pre- 
vented : thus adding the horrors of apprehension to 
the evil of an inevitable calamity. 

She repeated what she called, and what indeed is 
a well-remembered story on the subject of dreams, and 
which I think I have seen in print. A man accom- 
panied by his friend, visited an ancient mansion, and 
there saw, among other things, the figure of a lion in 
marble, represented as open-mouthed and enraged. 
On beholding the figure, the man exclaimed " there's 
my enemy ! I more than once have dreamed that I 
should owe my death to a lion." And so saying and 
smiling in scorn as he spoke, he thrust his arm into the 
lion's mouth. But within was an iron spike which se- 
verely lacerated his hand; and a mortification ensuing, 



PIOZZIANA. 2*27 

he died in consequence. This, said she, was a dream 
by which not only superstition would have been 
alarmed, but from which good sense would have taken 
warning. I then mentioned an event in private life, 
not generally known, but which was reported as true, 
and is as follows. 

A prelate of our church, much admired for his fine 
understanding, talents, and political liberality, was 
one day proceeding to take an airing with his wife in 
their carriage. Just at their setting out, their eldest 
son, a highly educated and most promising young 
man, rode up, and desired to be of the party inside. 
This the bishop peremptorily refused to allow, direct- 
ing his son by all means to remain on horseback, and 
ride at the side of the carriage. The youth for a 
moment remonstrated, but his father insisted, and was 
cheerfully obeyed. The bishop's lady then begged 
his lordship to tell her why he so resolutely adhered 
to his determination of not admitting his son to a seat 
with them ; adding, that in a matter of so much indif- 
ference she wished he had yielded. But the father 
replied that he had not acted without a reason ; for 
that he had been tormented by a dream the night 



228 piozziaka. 

before, when he imagined that he saw his son sud- 
denly thrown from his horse and killed : and that 
through fear of thinking himself superstitious for the 
rest of his days, he had persevered in rejecting his 
son's request. The bishop had scarcely spoken the 
words, when the horse on which his much-loved son 
was riding, threw the young man to the ground, and 
he was killed on the spot. The unhappy parents, the 
father especially, grieved incessantly for their loss ; 
and Mrs. Piozzi remarked, that, dreadful as was the 
penalty suffered by the unfortunate father^ it was a 
just infliction on a person who had disregarded one of 
the grand laws in the code of common sense, which 
prescribes to us never to be obstinate in what is 
apparently not an affair of moment. 



Having mentioned the fine likeness of herself, pre- 
sented by her to me and mine, I shall here add the 
lines which accompanied a gift so highly prized, and 
which I preserve as sent, within the case containing 
this excellent miniature. We were at the time 
making arrangements for a very long journey. 



PIOZZIANA. 229 

"Bath, July 7^,1817. 

; While partial fancy's dictates you, 
My generous friends, obey, 
And keep my lifeless shade in view, 
Companion of your way : 

These features Roche's happy art 

Has from oblivion sav'd ; 
Your own, upon my faithful heart, 
An abler hand engrav'd." 



The reader may have discovered, from passages in 
her letters, that she entertained sentiments of grati- 
tude, esteem, and genuine love for her husband, 
Mr. Piozzi. Often have I and others heard her avow 
these sentiments, and she repeatedly assured me that, 
in every respect, he was a perfect gentleman, and that 
no man could merit more of woman than he did by 
his deportment towards herself. It was, therefore, 
with a feeling of regret I read an expression used 
by Mr. Croker, in a note to his valuable edition of 
Boswell's u Johnson." In vol. iii., page 413, the edi- 
tor refers " to sarcastic observations published against 
Mrs. Piozzi," on the occasion of what he terms "her 
lamentable marriage." 

But can that occurrence in her life be justly so 



280 PIOZZIANA. 

called, which to her was productive of happiness,— 
of that which we all so eagerly seek for, and so rarely 
find ? I am willing to believe that, in applying the 
phrase above mentioned, the able and enlightened 
editor did so rather in conformity to the tone of cen- 
sure assumed towards Mrs. P. by the uninformed and 
prejudiced multitude, than as speaking from himself; 
because, in the progress of his arduous work as a com- 
mentator, he has seldom missed an opportunity of 
standing forth more as an admirer of her than as an 
opponent; and, unlike the cruel and misjudging world, 
has frequently done justice to the character of this 
amiable, most accomplished, and distinguished woman. 
There is another note introduced into Mr. Croker's 
publication, which calls for a word or two of remark 
on my part. In volume iii., p. 279, Malone is quoted 
as terming Santerre " a detestable ruffian. " I desire 
to be thought incapable of attempting to vilify Louis 
XVI., or vindicate the cowardly miscreants who 
destroyed him. The unhappy king was assuredly 
foully murdered ; but Santerre was, by accident, the 
military servant of the powers then prevailing in 
France, and was constrained to obey their mandate. 
If the anecdote which I have repeated in a foregoing 



PIOZZIANA. 231 

page concerning him, be true, as I believe it to be, 
it serves materially to clear him from the - charge of 
wanton barbarity in the performance of his dreadful 
duty. Mrs. Piozzi, who was personally acquainted 
with him, never spoke of him with the slightest share 
of harshness, as a member of society ; nor do we dis- 
cover in the records of those disastrous days, any 
authentic statement against him for peculiar atrocity, 
at a time when no one could be a revolutionary leader, 
without being, more or less, a criminal. 



This is sufficient. I shall only add, that should 
what I have written communicate but half as much 
pleasure to others, as the writing has afforded me, 
they will have no cause to complain. 

As to myself, I pretend to nothing but what is 
implied in the words addressed by Constant to 
Napoleon : — 

" Je ne suis pas la Rose, mais j'ai vecu pres d'elle ! " 

And, if I have succeeded in producing a more 
alluring portrait of our friend than has yet been 



2:32 piozziana. 

given of her, it is because I have not been a copyist, 
but drew from nature. 

My chief aim was to exhibit a faithful, but not un- 
favourable resemblance of one of the most extraordi- 
nary and agreeable persons it was ever my good 
fortune to know; one, by whose unfailing kindness 
and condescension I felt myself greatly obliged, and 
highly complimented; and whose equal in most res- 
pects, were I still to live as many years as have 
already passed over me, I might well despair of 
finding. 



The direful misfortune which occurred in the 
family of a gentleman whose sons were unhappily 
drowned at Weston Super Mare, during Mrs. Piozzi's 
sojourn there, and which she relates in one of her 
letters, brings to memory the unqualified praise she 
bestowed on some beautiful lines addressed to these 
beloved youths, and written by their fond father, but 
a short time before his cruel bereavement. 

Mrs. Piozzi's taste pointed them out to my notice ; 
and I indulge a melancholy pleasure in transcribing 
them from The Bristol Mercury of April 26, 1819. 



^4 



VERSES 

BY 

CHARLES ABRAHAM ELTON, ESQ. 

ADDRESSED TO HIS SONS. 

WRITTEN ON A VERNAL DAY, DURING CONFINEMENT FROM INDISPOSITION. 

» 

Go, happy boys, on whose white foreheads, Time 
Ploughs not the furrowing lines of human care ; 
The Season, like yourselves, is in its prime ; 
Pure as your spirits, breathes th' elastic air. 
While languor my reluctant limbs enchains, 
Race with the bounding lambs, as blithe as they ; 
Listen the rustling hedge-bird's twitt'ring strains, 
And wreathe your hats with primrose and with May. 
The Father, whom by that endearing name 
Ye know, and worship as Essential Love, 
Stretched out yon azure vault ; and he, the same, 
Lighted the sun ye feel, and gemm'd the grove. 
Go, and enjoy the gifts his bounty sends, 
And while ye sit by rock, or bank, or tree, 
Think that with books, those ever present friends, 
Time passes not uncheeringly with me. 
R 



VERSES BY C. A. ELTON, ESQ. 

The same kind spirit felt within the wood, 
In the wild violet's breath, or ivy's shade, 
Is present with me in my solitude, 
Filling the void your absence else had made. 
Fancy, his gift, can lead me forth to roam 
With you the hawthorn lanes and mosses green, 
Or bring you back to my sequester'd home, 
To tell the pleasant wonders ye have seen. 
Hope, too, his gift, is whispering of the day, 
When animating health shall set me free ; 
When, where ye now are straying, I shall stray, 
Climb to your cave, or sit beneath your tree. 
And we shall bless that same paternal Power, 
Who, still benignant, bids us smile or grieve ; 
With wise privations heightens rapture's hour, 
And never leaves us, though ourselves we leave. 

Bion. 



THE END. 



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